4-hour work week

Livre de Tim Ferris

Highlights

My Story and Why You Need This Book

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.

My Story and Why You Need This Book

The commonsense rules of the “real world” are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.

My Story and Why You Need This Book

I’m going to assume you are suffering from time famine, creeping dread, or—worst case—a tolerable and comfortable existence doing something unfulfilling. The last is most common and most insidious.

My Story and Why You Need This Book

this book is not about saving and will not recommend you abandon your daily glass of red wine for a million dollars 50 years from now. I’d rather have the wine. I won’t ask you to choose between enjoyment today or money later. I believe you can have both now. The goal is fun and profit.

My Story and Why You Need This Book

this book is not about finding your “dream job.” I will take as a given that, for most people, somewhere between six and seven billion of them, the perfect job is the one that takes the least time. The vast majority of people will never find a job that can be an unending source of fulfillment, so that is not the goal here; to free time and automate income is.

FAQ—Doubters Read This

Do I have to quit or hate my job? Do I have to be a risk-taker? No on all three counts. From using Jedi mind tricks to disappear from the office to designing businesses that finance your lifestyle, there are paths for every comfort level

Step I: D is for Definition

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

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

WHAT MAKES the difference? 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? It begins at the beginning. The New Rich can be separated from the crowd based on their goals, which reflect very distinct priorities and life philosophies. Note how subtle differences in wording completely change the necessary actions for fulfilling what at a glance appear to be similar goals

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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”).

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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.

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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.

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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 and have someone else ensure they run on time.

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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?

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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?

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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.

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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.

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. —RICHARD P. FEYNMAN, Nobel Prize–winning physicist

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

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.”

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

Using this as our criterion, the 80-hour-per-week, $500,000-peryearinvestmentbankerisless“powerful”thantheemployedNRwhoworks¼thehoursfor$40,000, but has complete freedom of when, where, and how to live. The former’s $500,000maybeworthlessthan$40,000 and the latter’s $40,000worthmorethan$500,000 when we run the numbers and look at the lifestyle output of their money.

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

Options—the ability to choose—is real power. This book is all about how to see and create those options with the least effort and cost. It just so happens, paradoxically, that you can make more money—a lot more money—by doing half of what you are doing now.

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

So, Who Are the NR? The employee who rearranges his schedule and negotiates a remote work agreement to achieve 90% of the results in one-tenth of the time, which frees him to practice cross-country skiing and take road trips with his family two weeks per month. The business owner who eliminates the least profitable customers and projects, outsources all operations entirely, and travels the world collecting rare documents, all while working remotely on a website to showcase her own illustration work. The student who elects to risk it all—which is nothing—to establish an online video rental service that delivers $5,000 per month in income from a small niche of Blu-ray aficionados, a two-hour-per-week side project that allows him to work full-time as an animal rights lobbyist. The options are limitless

1. Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

each path begins with the same first step: replacing assumptions. To join the movement, you will need to learn a new lexicon and recalibrate direction using a compass for an unusual world

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Everything popular is wrong. —OSCAR WILDE, The Importance of Being Earnest

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

3. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance. Retirement planning is like life insurance. It should be viewed as nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario: in this case, becoming physically incapable of working and needing a reservoir of capital to survive. Retirement as a goal or final redemption is flawed for at least three solid reasons: a. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice. b. Most people will never be able to retire and maintain even a hotdogs-for-dinner standard of living. Even one million is chump change in a world where traditional retirement could span 30 years and inflation lowers your purchasing power 2–4% per year. The math doesn’t work.3 The golden years become lower-middle-class life revisited. That’s a bittersweet ending. c. If the math does work, it means that you are one ambitious, hardworking machine. If that’s the case, guess what? One week into retirement, you’ll be so damn bored that you’ll want to stick bicycle spokes in your eyes. You’ll probably opt to look for a new job or start another company. Kinda defeats the purpose of waiting, doesn’t it? I’m not saying don’t plan for the worst case—I have maxed out 401(k)s and IRAs I use primarily for tax purposes—but don’t mistake retirement for the goal.

4. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Interest and Energy Are Cyclical. If I offered you $10,000,000 to work 24 hours a day for 15 years and then retire, would you do it? Of course not—you couldn’t. It is unsustainable, just as what most define as a career: doing the same thing for 8+ hours per day until you break down or have enough cash to permanently stop. How else can my 30-year-old friends all look like a cross between Donald Trump and Joan Rivers? It’s horrendous—premature aging fueled by triple bypass frappuccinos and impossible workloads. Alternating periods of activity and rest is necessary to survive, let alone thrive. Capacity, interest, and mental endurance all wax and wane. Plan accordingly. The NR aims to distribute “mini-retirements” throughout life instead of hoarding the recovery and enjoyment for the fool’s gold of retirement. By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Less Is Not Laziness. Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Let’s define “laziness” anew—to endure a non-ideal existence, to let circumstance or others decide life for you, or to amass a fortune while passing through life like a spectator from an office window.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Focus on being productive instead of busy.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

The Timing Is Never Right. I once asked my mom how she decided when to have her first child, little ol’ me. The answer was simple: “It was something we wanted, and we decided there was no point in putting it off. The timing is never right to have a baby.” And so it is. For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up all the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Ask for Forgiveness, Not Permission. If it isn’t going to devastate those around you, try it and then justify it. People—whether parents, partners, or bosses—deny things on an emotional basis that they can learn to accept after the fact. If the potential damage is moderate or in any way reversible, don’t give people the chance to say no. 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.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses. Most people are good at a handful of things and utterly miserable at most.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor. 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.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Things in Excess Become Their Opposite. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. In excess, most endeavors and possessions take on the characteristics of their opposite. Thus: Pacifists become militants. Freedom fighters become tyrants. Blessings become curses. Help becomes hindrance. More becomes less.4 Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want. This is true of possessions and even time. Lifestyle Design is thus not interested in creating an excess of idle time, which is poisonous, but the positive use of free time, defined simply as doing what you want as opposed to what you feel obligated to do.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Money Alone Is Not the Solution. There is much to be said for the power of money as currency (I’m a fan myself ), but adding more of it just isn’t the answer as often as we’d like to think. In part, it’s 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: “John, I’d love to talk about the gaping void I feel in my life, the hopelessness that hits me like a punch in the eye every time I start my computer in the morning, but I have so much work to do!

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Busy yourself with the routine of the money wheel, pretend it’s the fix-all, and you artfully create a constant distraction that prevents you from seeing just how pointless it is. Deep down, you know it’s all an illusion, but with everyone participating in the same game of make-believe, it’s easy to forget.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Relative Income Is More Important Than Absolute Income. Among dietitians and nutritionists, there is some debate over the value of a calorie. Is a calorie a calorie, much like a rose is a rose? Is fat loss as simple as expending more calories than you consume, or is the source of those calories important? Based on work with top athletes, I know the answer to be the latter. What about income? Is a dollar is a dollar is a dollar? The New Rich don’t think so. Let’s look at this like a fifth-grade math problem. Two hardworking chaps are headed toward each other. Chap A moving at 80 hours per week and Chap B moving at 10 hours per week. They both make $50,000peryear.Whowillbericherwhentheypassinthemiddleofthenight?IfyousaidB,youwouldbecorrect,andthisisthedifferencebetweenabsoluteandrelativeincome.Absoluteincomeismeasuredusingoneholyandinalterablevariable:therawandalmightydollar.JaneDoemakes$100,000 per year and is thus twice as rich as John Doe, who makes $50,000peryear.Relativeincomeusestwovariables:thedollarandtime,usuallyhours.Thewhole“peryear”conceptisarbitraryandmakesiteasytotrickyourself.Let’slookattherealtrade.JaneDoemakes$100,000 per year, $2,000foreachof50weeksperyear,andworks80hoursperweek.JaneDoethusmakes$25 per hour. John Doe makes $50,000peryear,$1,000 for each of 50 weeks per year, but works 10 hours per week and hence makes $100 per hour. In relative income, John is four times richer.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

relative income is the real measurement of wealth for the New Rich.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Distress Is Bad, Eustress Is Good. Unbeknownst to most fun-loving bipeds, not all stress is bad. Indeed, the New Rich don’t aim to eliminate all stress. Not in the least. There are two separate types of stress, each as different as euphoria and its seldom-mentioned opposite, dysphoria. Distress refers to harmful stimuli that make you weaker, less confident, and less able. Destructive criticism, abusive bosses, and smashing your face on a curb are examples of this. These are things we want to avoid. 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.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

there is no progress without eustress, and the more eustress we can create or apply to our lives, the sooner we can actualize our dreams. The trick is telling the two apart. The New Rich are equally aggressive in removing distress and finding eustress.

2. Rules That Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

How has being “realistic” or “responsible” kept you from the life you want? How has doing what you “should” resulted in subpar experiences or regret for not having done something else? Look at what you’re currently doing and ask yourself, “What would happen if I did the opposite of the people around me? What will I sacrifice if I continue on this track for 5, 10, or 20 years?”

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

He had realized something while arcing in slow circles toward the earth—risks weren’t that scary once you took them

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

Hans didn’t know exactly what he wanted, but he had tasted it. On the other hand, he did know what bored him to tears, and he was done with it. No more passing days as the living dead, no more dinners where his colleagues compared cars, riding on the sugar high of a new BMW purchase until someone bought a more expensive Mercedes. It was over. Immediately, a strange shift began—Hans felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace with himself and what he was doing. He had always been terrified of plane turbulence, as if he might die with the best inside of him, but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby. Strange indeed. More than a year later, he was still getting unsolicited job offers from law firms, but by then had started Nexus Surf,5 a premier surf-adventure company based in the tropical paradise of Florianopolis, Brazil. He had met his dream girl, a Carioca with caramel-colored skin named Tatiana, and spent most of his time relaxing under palm trees or treating clients to the best times of their lives. Is this what he had been so afraid of?

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

Conquering Fear = Defining Fear

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. —YVON CHOUINARD,

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

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. This seems valid and is a tempting hallucination when a job is boring or uninspiring instead of pure hell. Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization. Do you really think it will improve or is it wishful thinking and an excuse for inaction? If you were confident in improvement, would you really be questioning things so? Generally not. This is fear of the unknown disguised as optimism.

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

Jean-Marc Hachey landed in West Africa as a volunteer, with high hopes of lending a helping hand. In that sense, his timing was great. He arrived in Ghana in the early 1980s, in the middle of a coup d’état, at the peak of hyperinflation, and just in time for the worst drought in a decade. For these same reasons, some people would consider his timing quite poor from a more selfish survival standpoint. He had also missed the memo. The national menu had changed, and they were out of luxuries like bread and clean water. He would be surviving for four months on a slushlike concoction of corn meal and spinach. Not what most of us would order at the movie theater. “WOW, I CAN SURVIVE.” JEAN-MARC HAD PASSED the point of no return, but it didn’t matter. After two weeks of adjusting to the breakfast, lunch, and dinner (Mush à la Ghana), he had no desire to escape. The most basic of foods and good friends proved to be the only real necessities, and what would seem like a disaster from the outside was the most life-affirming epiphany he’d ever experienced: The worst really wasn’t that bad. To enjoy life, you don’t need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

Now 48, Jean-Marc lives in a nice home in Ontario, but could live without it. He has cash, but could fall into poverty tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter. Some of his fondest memories still include nothing but friends and gruel. He is dedicated to creating special moments for himself and his family and is utterly unconcerned with retirement. He’s already lived 20 years of partial retirement in perfect health.

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

IF YOU ARE nervous about making the jump or simply putting it off out of fear of the unknown, here is your antidote. Write down your answers, and keep in mind that thinking a lot will not prove as fruitful or as prolific as simply brain vomiting on the page. Write and do not edit—aim for volume. Spend a few minutes on each answer. 1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. What doubt, fears, and “what-ifs” pop up as you consider the big changes you can—or need—to make? Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life? What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of 1–10? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen? 2. What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily? Chances are, it’s easier than you imagine. How could you get things back under control? 3. What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probable scenarios? Now that you’ve defined the nightmare, what are the more probable or definite positive outcomes, whether internal (confidence, self-esteem, etc.) or external? What would the impact of these more-likely outcomes be on a scale of 1–10? How likely is it that you could produce at least a moderately good outcome? Have less intelligent people done this before and pulled it off? 4. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? Imagine this scenario and run through questions 1–3 above. If you quit your job to test other options, how could you later get back on the same career track if you absolutely had to? 5. What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be—it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. 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. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous businesspeople for advice. 6. What is it costing you—financially, emotionally, and physically—to postpone action? Don’t only evaluate the potential downside of action. It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of inaction. If you don’t pursue those things that excite you, where will you be in one year, five years, and ten years? How will you feel having allowed circumstance to impose itself upon you and having allowed ten more years of your finite life to pass doing what you know will not fulfill you? If you telescope out 10 years and know with 100% certainty that it is a path of disappointment and regret, and if we define risk as “the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome,” inaction is the greatest risk of all. 7. What are you waiting for? If you cannot answer this without resorting to the previously rejected concept of good timing, the answer is simple: You’re afraid, just like the rest of the world. Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

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 Revolutionists

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

Doing the Unrealistic Is Easier Than Doing the Realistic

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

FROM CONTACTING BILLIONAIRES to rubbing elbows with celebrities—the second group of students did both—it’s as easy as believing it can be done. It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy-consuming. It is easier to raise $1,000,000thanitis$100,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s. If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

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. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. Crying out of happiness is a perfect illustration of this. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is—here’s the clincher—boredom. Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all. When people suggest you follow your “passion” or your “bliss,” I propose that they are, in fact, referring to the same singular concept: excitement. This brings us full circle. The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

When I started BrainQUICKEN LLC in 2001, it was with a clear goal in mind: Make $1,000 per day whether I was banging my head on a laptop or cutting my toenails on the beach. It was to be an automated source of cash flow. If you look at my chronology, it is obvious that this didn’t happen until a meltdown forced it, despite the requisite income. Why? The goal wasn’t specific enough. I hadn’t defined alternate activities that would replace the initial workload. Therefore, I just continued working, even though there was no financial need. I needed to feel productive and had no other vehicles. This is how most people work until death: “I’ll just work until I have X dollars and then do what I want.” If you don’t define the “what I want” alternate activities, the X figure will increase indefinitely to avoid the fear-inducing uncertainty of this void. This is when both employees and entrepreneurs become fat men in red BMWs.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

The worst that could happen wasn’t crashing and burning, it was accepting terminal boredom as a tolerable status quo. Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract “failure.”

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

THERE IS A process that I have used, and still use, to reignite life or correct course when the Fat Man in the BMW rears his ugly head. In some form or another, it is the same process used by the most impressive NR I have met around the world: dreamlining. 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. Now it’s your turn to think big.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

People are fond of using the “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” adage as an excuse for inaction, as if all successful people are born with powerful friends. Nonsense. Here’s how normal people build supernormal networks.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

“I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have. I felt that if I could help students overcome the fear of rejection with cold-calling and cold e-mail, it would serve them forever,” Ferriss said.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

“I participate in this contest every day,” said Ferriss. “I do what I always do: find a personal e-mail if possible, often through their little-known personal blogs, send a two- to three-paragraph e-mail which explains that I am familiar with their work, and ask one simple-to-answer but thought-provoking question in that e-mail related to their work or life philosophies. The goal is to start a dialogue so they take the time to answer future e-mails—not to ask for help. That can only come after at least three or four genuine e-mail exchanges.”

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

Contacting Schmidt proved more challenging. For Marrinan, the toughest part was getting Schmidt’s personal e-mail address. He e-mailed a Princeton dean asking for it. No response. Two weeks later, he e-mailed the same dean again, defending his request by reminding her that he had previously met Schmidt. The dean said no, but Marrinan refused to give up. He e-mailed her a third time. “Have you ever made an exception?” he asked. The dean finally gave in, he said, and provided him with Schmidt’s e-mail.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

“I deal with rejection by persisting, not by taking my business elsewhere. My maxim comes from Samuel Beckett, a personal hero of mine: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ You won’t believe what you can accomplish by attempting the impossible with the courage to repeatedly fail better.”

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

DREAMLINING WILL BE fun, and it will be hard. The harder it is, the more you need it. To save time, I recommend using the automatic calculators and forms at www.fourhourblog.com. Refer to the model worksheet on here as you complete the following steps: 1. What would you do if there were no way you could fail? If you were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world? Create two timelines—6 months and 12 months—and list up to five things you dream of having (including, but not limited to, material wants: house, car, clothing, etc.), being (be a great cook, be fluent in Chinese, etc.), and doing (visiting Thailand, tracing your roots overseas, racing ostriches, etc.) in that order. If you have difficulty identifying what you want in some categories, as most will, consider what you hate or fear in each and write down the opposite. Do not limit yourself, and do not concern yourself with how these things will be accomplished. For now, it’s unimportant. This is an exercise in reversing repression. Be sure not to judge or fool yourself. If you really want a Ferrari, don’t put down solving world hunger out of guilt. For some, the dream will be fame, for others fortune or prestige. All people have their vices and insecurities. If something will improve your feeling of self-worth, put it down. I have a racing motorcycle, and quite apart from the fact that I love speed, it just makes me feel like a cool dude. There is nothing wrong with that. Put it all down.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

For all their bitching about what’s holding them back, most people have a lot of trouble coming up with the defined dreams they’re being held from. This is particularly true with the “doing” category. In that case, consider these questions: a. What would you do, day to day, if you had $100 million in the bank? b. What would make you most excited to wake up in the morning to another day? Don’t rush—think about it for a few minutes. If still blocked, fill in the five “doing” spots with the following: one place to visit one thing to do before you die (a memory of a lifetime) one thing to do daily one thing to do weekly one thing you’ve always wanted to learn

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

5. What does “being” entail doing? Convert each “being” into a “doing” to make it actionable. Identify an action that would characterize this state of being or a task that would mean you had achieved it. People find it easier to brainstorm “being” first, but this column is just a temporary holding spot for “doing” actions. Here are a few examples: Great cook  make Christmas dinner without help Fluent in Chinese  have a five-minute conversation with a Chinese co-worker

6. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

7. What are the four dreams that would change it all? Using the 6-month timeline, star or otherwise highlight the four most exciting and/or important dreams from all columns. Repeat the process with the 12-month timeline if desired. 5. Determine the cost of these dreams and calculate your Target Monthly Income (TMI) for both timelines. If financeable, what is the cost per month for each of the four dreams (rent, mortgage, payment plan installments, etc.)? Start thinking of income and expense in terms of monthly cash flow—dollars in and dollars out—instead of grand totals. Things often cost much, much less than expected.

8. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

Last, calculate your Target Monthly Income (TMI) for realizing these dreamlines. This is how to do it: First, total each of the columns A, B, and C, counting only the four selected dreams. Some of these column totals could be zero, which is fine. Next, add your total monthly expenses × 1.3 (the 1.3 represents your expenses plus a 30% buffer for safety or savings). This grand total is your TMI and the target to keep in mind for the rest of the book. I like to further divide this TMI by 30 to get my TDI—Target Daily Income.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

5. Determine three steps for each of the four dreams in just the 6-month timeline and take the first step now. I’m not a big believer in long-term planning and far-off goals. In fact, I generally set 3-month and 6-month dreamlines. The variables change too much and in-the-future distance becomes an excuse for postponing action. The objective of this exercise isn’t, therefore, to outline every step from start to finish, but to define the end goal, the required vehicle to achieve them (TMI, TDI), and build momentum with critical first steps

6. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

First, let’s focus on those critical first steps. Define three steps for each dream that will get you closer to its actualization. Set actions—simple, well-defined actions—for now, tomorrow (complete before 11 A.M.) and the day after (again completed before 11 A.M.). Once you have three steps for each of the four goals, complete the three actions in the “now” column. Do it now. Each should be simple enough to do in five minutes or less. If not, rachet it down. If it’s the middle of the night and you can’t call someone, do something else now, such as send an e-mail, and set the call for first thing tomorrow.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

If the next stage is some form of research, get in touch with someone who knows the answer instead of spending too much time in books or online, which can turn into paralysis by analysis. The best first step, the one I recommend, is finding someone who’s done it and ask for advice on how to do the same. It’s not hard. Other options include setting a meeting or phone call with a trainer, mentor, or salesperson to build momentum. Can you schedule a private class or a commitment that you’ll feel bad about canceling? Use guilt to your advantage.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now!

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

THE MOST IMPORTANT actions are never comfortable. Fortunately, it is possible to condition yourself to discomfort and overcome it.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

I’ve trained myself to propose solutions instead of ask for them, to elicit desired responses instead of react, and to be assertive without burning bridges. To have an uncommon lifestyle, you need to develop the uncommon habit of making decisions, both for yourself and for others.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

There is a direct correlation between an increased sphere of comfort and getting what you want.

Step II: E is for Elimination

One does not accumulate but eliminate.It is not daily increase but dailydecrease. The height of cultivationalways runs to simplicity. —BRUCE LEE

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. —ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

have to free that time. The trick, of course, is to do so while maintaining or increasing your income. The intention of this chapter, and what you will experience if you follow the instructions, is an increase in personal productivity between 100 and 500%.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

The employee is increasing productivity to increase negotiating leverage for two simultaneous objectives: pay raises and a remote working arrangement.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

employees for now need to implement the process as D-E-L-A. The reason relates to environment. 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. Even if you produce twice the results you had in the past, if you’re working a quarter of the hours of your colleagues, there is a good chance of receiving a pink slip. Even if you work 10 hours a week and produce twice the results of people working 40, the collective request will be, “Work 40 hours a week and produce 8 times the results.” This is an endless game and one you want to avoid. Hence the need for Liberation first.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

If you’re an employee, this chapter will increase your value and make it more painful for the company to fire you than to grant raises and a remote working agreement. That is your goal. Once the latter is accomplished, you can drop hours without bureaucratic interference and use the resultant free time to fulfill dreamlines

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

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.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

I would consider the best door-to-door salesperson efficient—that is, refined and excellent at selling door-to-door without wasting time—but utterly ineffective. He or she would sell more using a better vehicle such as e-mail or direct mail.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

This is also true for the person who checks e-mail 30 times per day and develops an elaborate system of folder rules and sophisticated techniques for ensuring that each of those 30 brain farts moves as quickly as possible. I was a specialist at such professional wheel-spinning. It is efficient on some perverse level, but far from effective.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

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.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

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. To find the right things, we’ll need to go to the garden.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

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. 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

I began a dissection of my business and personal life through the lenses of two questions: 1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? 2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

For the entire day, I put aside everything seemingly urgent and did the most intense truth-baring analysis possible, applying these questions to everything from my friends to customers and advertising to relaxation activities. Don’t expect to find you’re doing everything right—the truth often hurts. The goal is to find your inefficiencies in order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can multiply them. In the 24 hours that followed, I made several simple but emotionally difficult decisions that literally changed my life forever and enabled the lifestyle I now enjoy.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

I put all of these unproductive customers on passive mode: If they ordered, great—let them fax in the order. If not, I would do absolutely no chasing: no phone calls, no e-mail, nothing. That left the two larger customers to deal with, who were professional ball breakers but contributed about 10% to the bottom line at the time. You’ll always have a few of these, and it is a quandary that causes all sorts of problems, not the least of which are self-hatred and depression. Up to that point, I had taken their browbeating, insults, time-consuming arguments, and tirades as a cost of doing business. I realized during the 80/20 analysis that these two people were the source of nearly all my unhappiness and anger throughout the day, and it usually spilled over into my personal time, keeping me up at night with the usual “I should have said X, Y, and Z to that penis” self-flagellation. I finally concluded the obvious: The effect on my self-esteem and state of mind just wasn’t worth the financial gain. I didn’t need the money for any precise reason, and I had assumed I needed to take it. The customers are always right, aren’t they? Part of doing business, right? Hell, no. Not for the NR, anyway. I fired their asses and enjoyed every second of it.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

more customers is not automatically more income. More customers is not the goal and often translates into 90% more housekeeping and a paltry 1–3% increase in income. Make no mistake, maximum income from minimal necessary effort (including minimum number of customers) is the primary goal. I duplicated my strengths, in this case my top producers, and focused on increasing the size and frequency of their orders. The end result? I went from chasing and appeasing 120 customers to simply receiving large orders from 8, with absolutely no pleading phone calls or e-mail haranguing. My monthly income increased from $30Kto$60K in four weeks and my weekly hours immediately dropped from over 80 to approximately 15

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

For the entrepreneur, the wasteful use of time is a matter of bad habit and imitation. I am no exception. Most entrepreneurs were once employees and come from the 9–5 culture. Thus they adopt the same schedule, whether or not they function at 9:00 A.M. or need 8 hours to generate their target income. This schedule is a collective social agreement and a dinosaur legacy of the results-by-volume approach. How is it possible that all the people in the world need exactly 8 hours to accomplish their work? It isn’t. 9–5 is arbitrary.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

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.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

This presents a very curious phenomenon. There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other: 1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20). 2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law). 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. 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

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

At least three times per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: Am I being productive or just active? Charney captured the essence of this with less-abstract wording: Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important? He eliminated all of the activities he used as crutches and began to focus on demonstrating results instead of showing dedication. Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise. Be ruthless

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

we spend too much time with those who poison us with pessimism, sloth, and low expectations of themselves and the world. It is often the case that you have to fire certain friends or retire from particular social circles to have the life you want. This isn’t being mean; it is being practical. Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether. I’m not going to lie: It sucks. It hurts like pulling out a splinter. But you are the average of the five people you associate with most, so do not underestimate the effects of your pessimistic, unambitious, or disorganized friends. If someone isn’t making you stronger, they’re making you weaker. Remove the splinters and you’ll thank yourself for it.

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

THE KEY TO having more time is doing less, and there are two paths to getting there, both of which should be used together: (1) Define a to-do list and (2) define a not-to-do list. In general terms, there are but two questions: What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness? What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcome and happiness? Hypothetical cases help to get us started: 1. If you had a heart attack and had to work two hours per day, what would you do? Not five hours, not four hours, not three—two hours. It’s not where I want you to ultimately be, but it’s a start. Besides, I can hear your brain bubbling already: That’s ridiculous. Impossible! I know, I know. If I told you that you could survive for months, functioning quite well, on four hours of sleep per night, would you believe me? Probably not. Notwithstanding, millions of new mothers do it all the time. This exercise is not optional. The doctor has warned you, after triple-bypass surgery, that if you don’t cut down your work to two hours per day for the first three months post-op, you will die. How would you do it? 2. If you had a second heart attack and had to work two hours per week, what would you do? 3. If you had a gun to your head and had to stop doing ⅘ of different time-consuming activities, what would you remove? Simplicity requires ruthlessness. If you had to stop ⅘ of time-consuming activities—e-mail, phone calls, conversations, paperwork, meetings, advertising, customers, suppliers, products, services, etc.—what would you eliminate to keep the negative effect on income to a minimum? Used even once per month, this question alone can keep you sane and on track. 4. What are the top-three activities that I use to fill time to feel as though I’ve been productive? These are usually used to postpone more important actions (often uncomfortable because there is a chance of failure or rejection). Be honest with yourself, as we all do this on occasion. What are your crutch activities?

5. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

6. Learn to ask, “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?” Don’t ever arrive at the office or in front of your computer without a clear list of priorities. You’ll just read unassociated e-mail and scramble your brain for the day. Compile your to-do list for tomorrow no later than this evening. I don’t recommend using Outlook or computerized to-do lists, because it is possible to add an infinite number of items. I use a standard piece of paper folded in half three times, which fits perfectly in the pocket and limits you to noting only a few items. There should never be more than two mission-critical items to complete each day. Never. It just isn’t necessary if they’re actually high-impact. If you are stuck trying to decide between multiple items that all seem crucial, as happens to all of us, look at each in turn and ask yourself, If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?

7. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

8. 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?

9. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

10. 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. If you prioritize properly, there is no need to multitask. It is a symptom of “task creep”—doing more to feel productive while actually accomplishing less. As stated, you should have, at most, two primary goals or tasks per day. Do them separately from start to finish without distraction. Divided attention will result in more frequent interruptions, lapses in concentration, poorer net results, and less gratification.

11. The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

COMFORT CHALLENGE Learn to Propose (2 Days) Stop asking for opinions and start proposing solutions. Begin with the small things. If someone is going to ask, or asks, “Where should we eat?” “What movie should we watch?” “What should we do tonight?” or anything similar, do NOT reflect it back with, “Well, what do you want to …?” Offer a solution. Stop the back-and-forth and make a decision. Practice this in both personal and professional environments. Here are a few lines that help (my favorites are the first and last): “Can I make a suggestion?” “I propose …” “I’d like to propose …” “I suggest that … What do you think?” “Let’s try … and then try something else if that doesn’t work.”

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

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”

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. —ALBERT EINSTEIN

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

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

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

I usually check business e-mail for about an hour each Monday, and I never check voicemail when abroad. Never ever.

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

I’m going to propose that you develop an uncanny ability to be selectively ignorant. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is also practical. It is imperative that you learn to ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable. Most are all three.

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

The first step is to develop and maintain a low-information diet. Just as modern man consumes both too many calories and calories of no nutritional value, information workers eat data both in excess and from the wrong sources.

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

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

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

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: 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. 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%. 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

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

How to Read 200% Faster in 10 Minutes THERE WILL BE times when, it’s true, you will have to read. Here are four simple tips that will lessen the damage and increase your speed at least 200% in 10 minutes with no comprehension loss: 1. Two Minutes: Use a pen or finger to trace under each line as you read as fast as possible. Reading is a series of jumping snapshots (called saccades), and using a visual guide prevents regression. 2. Three Minutes: Begin each line focusing on the third word in from the first word, and end each line focusing on the third word in from the last word. This makes use of peripheral vision that is otherwise wasted on margins. For example, even when the highlighted words in the next line are your beginning and ending focal points, the entire sentence is “read,” just with less eye movement: “Once upon a time, an information addict decided to detox.” Move in from both sides further and further as it gets easier. 3. Two Minutes: Once comfortable indenting three or four words from both sides, attempt to take only two snapshots—also known as fixations—per line on the first and last indented words. 4. Three Minutes: Practice reading too fast for comprehension but with good technique (the above three techniques) for five pages prior to reading at a comfortable speed. This will heighten perception and reset your speed limit, much like how 50 mph normally feels fast but seems like slow motion if you drop down from 70 mph on the freeway.

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

beginning tomorrow and for at least five full days, here are the rules: 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. Necessary means necessary, not nice to have.

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

Unnecessary reading is public enemy number one during this one-week fast. What do you do with all the extra time? Replace the newspaper at breakfast with speaking to your spouse, bonding with your children, or learning the principles in this book. Between 9–5, complete your top priorities as per the last chapter. If you complete them with time to spare, do the exercises in this book

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

Be strict with yourself. I can prescribe the medicine, but you need to take it.

6. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

7. 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. I used to have the habit of reading a book or site to prepare for an event weeks or months in the future, and I would then need to reread the same material when the deadline for action was closer. This is stupid and redundant. Follow your to-do short list and fill in the information gaps as you go. Focus on what digerati Kathy Sierra calls “just-in-time” information instead of “just-in-case” information.

8. The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

9. Practice the art of nonfinishing. This is another one that took me a long time to learn. Starting something doesn’t automatically justify finishing it. If you are reading an article that sucks, put it down and don’t pick it back up. If you go to a movie and it’s worse than Matrix III, get the hell out of there before more neurons die. If you’re full after half a plate of ribs, put the damn fork down and don’t order dessert. More is not better, and stopping something is often 10 times better than finishing it. Develop the habit of nonfinishing that which is boring or unproductive if a boss isn’t demanding it.

10. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

e-mail communication should be streamlined to prevent needless back-and-forth. Thus, an e-mail with “Can you meet at 4:00 P.M.?” would become “Can you meet at 4:00 P.M.? If so. … If not, please advise three other times that work for you.” This “if … then” structure becomes more important as you check e-mail less often.

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

Batching is also the solution to our distracting but necessary time consumers, those repetitive tasks that interrupt the most important. If you check mail and make bill payments five times a week, it might take 30 minutes per instance and you respond to a total of 20 letters in two and a half hours. If you do this once per week instead, it might take 60 minutes total and you still respond to a total of 20 letters

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

There is a psychological switching of gears that can require up to 45 minutes to resume a major task that has been interrupted. More than a quarter of each 9–5 period (28%) is consumed by such interruptions.13

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

8. Jonathan B. Spira and Joshua B. Feintuch, The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity (Basex, 2005)

9. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

Never check e-mail first thing in the morning.12 Instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 A.M. to avoid using lunch or reading e-mail as a postponement excuse.

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

EMPOWERMENT FAILURE REFERS to being unable to accomplish a task without first obtaining permission or information. It is often a case of being micromanaged or micromanaging someone else, both of which consume your time. For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

In 2002, I had outsourced customer service for order tracking and returns but still handled product-related questions myself. The result? I received more than 200 e-mail per day, spending all hours between 9–5 responding to them, and the volume was growing at a rate of more than 10% per week! I had to cancel advertising and limit shipments, as additional customer service would have been the final nail in the coffin. It wasn’t a scalable model. Remember this word, as it will be important later. It wasn’t scalable because there was an information and decision bottleneck: me. The clincher? The bulk of the e-mail that landed in my inbox was not product-related at all but requests from the outsourced customer service reps seeking permission for different actions: The customer claims he didn’t receive the shipment. What should we do? The customer had a bottle held at customs. Can we reship to a U.S. address? The customer needs the product for a competition in two days. Can we ship overnight, and if so, how much should we charge? It was endless. Hundreds upon hundreds of different situations made it impractical to write a manual, and I didn’t have the time or experience to do so regardless. Fortunately, someone did have the experience: the outsourced reps themselves. I sent one single e-mail to all the supervisors that immediately turned 200 e-mail per day into fewer than 20 e-mail per week: Hi All, I would like to establish a new policy for my account that overrides all others. Keep the customer happy. If it is a problem that takes less than $100tofix,useyourjudgmentandfixityourself.Thisisofficialwrittenpermissionandarequesttofixallproblemsthatcostunder$100 without contacting me. I am no longer your customer; my customers are your customer. Don’t ask me for permission. Do what you think is right, and we’ll make adjustments as we go along. Thank you, Tim

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them. The first month cost perhaps $200 more than if I had been micromanaging. In the meantime, I saved more than 100 hours of my own time per month, customers received faster service, returns dropped to less than 3% (the industry average is 10–15%), and outsourcers spent less time on my account, all of which resulted in rapid growth, higher profit margins, and happier people on all sides.

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

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. Find your focus and you’ll find your lifestyle. The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

Eliminate the decision bottleneck for all things that are nonfatal if misperformed. If an employee, believe in yourself enough to ask for more independence on a trial basis. Have practical “rules” prepared and ask the boss for the sale after surprising him or her with an impromptu presentation. Remember the Puppy Dog Close—make it a one-time trial and reversible. For the entrepreneur or manager, give others the chance to prove themselves. The likelihood of irreversible or expensive problems is minimal and the time savings are guaranteed. Remember, profit is only profitable to the extent that you can use it. For that you need time.

7. Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal

getting comfortable with saying “no.” Potential questions to decline include the following: Do you have a minute? Want to see a movie tonight/tomorrow? Can you help me with X? “No” should be your default answer to all requests. Don’t make up elaborate lies or you’ll get called on them. A simple “I really can’t—sorry; I’ve got too much on my plate right now” will do as a catch-all response.

8. Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU

8. Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

GETTING A REMOTE personal assistant is a huge departure point and marks the moment that you learn how to give orders and be commander instead of the commanded. It is small-scale training wheels for the most critical of NR skills: remote management and communication. It is time to learn how to be the boss. It isn’t time-consuming. It’s low-cost and it’s low-risk. Whether or not you “need” someone at this point is immaterial. It is an exercise.

8. Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter. It’s about building a system to replace yourself. This is the first exercise. Even if you have no intention of becoming an entrepreneur, this is the ultimate continuation of our 80/20 and elimination process: Preparing someone to replace you (even if it never happens) will produce an ultrarefined set of rules that will cut remaining fat and redundancy from your schedule.

8. Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

If you spend your time, worth $20–25perhour,doingsomethingthatsomeoneelsewilldofor$10 per hour, it’s simply a poor use of resources. It is important to take baby steps toward paying others to do work for you. Few do it, which is another reason so few people have their ideal lifestyles.

8. Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. —bill gates

8. Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

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

8. Outsourcing Life: Off-loading the Rest and a Taste of Geoarbitrage

9. Get an assistant—even if you don’t need one. Develop the comfort of commanding and not being commanded. Begin with a one-time test project or small repetitive task (daily preferred). I advise using domestic help for language-intensive tasks and using foreign assistants in the early stages to improve the general clarity of your communication.

10. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

THERE ARE A million and one ways to make a million dollars. From franchising to freelance consulting, the list is endless. Fortunately, most of them are unsuited to our purpose. 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.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

we need a product to sell. If you own a service business, this section will help you convert expertise into a downloadable or shippable good to escape the limits of a per-hour-based model. If starting from scratch, ignore service businesses for now, as constant customer contact makes absence difficult.21

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

10. There are a few limited exceptions, such as online membership sites that don’t require content generation, but as a general rule, products require much less maintenance and will get you to your TMI faster.

11. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

first: cash flow and time. With these two currencies, all other things are possible. Without them, nothing is possible

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

the more competing resellers there are, the faster your product goes extinct. This was one of Sarah’s mistakes. It works like this: Reseller A sells the product for your recommended advertised price of $50,thenresellerBsellsitfor$45 to compete with A, and then C sells it for $40 to compete with A and B. In no time at all, no one is making profit from selling your product and reorders disappear. Customers are now accustomed to the lower pricing and the process is irreversible. The product is dead and you need to create a new product. This is precisely the reason why so many companies need to create new product after new product month after month. It’s a headache. I had one single supplement, BrainQUICKEN® (also sold as BodyQUICK®) for six years and maintained a consistent profit margin by limiting wholesale distribution, particularly online, to the top one or two largest resellers who could move serious quantities of product and who agreed to maintain a minimum advertised pricing.24 Otherwise, rogue discounters on eBay and mom-and-pop independents will drive you broke.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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. I have been a student and an athlete, so I developed products for those markets, focusing on the male demographic whenever possible. The audiobook I created for college guidance counselors failed because I have never been a guidance counselor. I developed the subsequent speed-reading seminar after realizing that I had free access to students, and the business succeeded because—being a student myself—I understood their needs and spending habits. Be a member of your target market and don’t speculate what others need or will be willing to buy.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

BrainQUICKEN was initially designed for students, but the market proved too scattered and difficult to reach. Based on positive feedback from student-athletes, I relaunched the product as BodyQUICK and tested advertising in magazines specific to martial artists and powerlifters. These are minuscule markets compared to the massive student market, but not small. Low media cost and lack of competition enabled me to dominate with the first “neural accelerator”26 in these niches. It is more profitable to be a big fish in a small pond than a small undefined fish in a big pond

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Ask yourself the following questions to find profitable niches. 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? Look creatively at your resume, work experience, physical habits, and hobbies and compile a list of all the groups, past and present, that you can associate yourself with. Look at products and books you own, include online and offline subscriptions, and ask yourself, “What groups of people purchase the same?” Which magazines, websites, and newsletters do you read on a regular basis?

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

10. Which of the groups you identified have their own magazines? Visit a large bookstore such as Barnes & Noble and browse the magazine rack for smaller specialty magazines to brainstorm additional niches. There are literally thousands of occupation- and interest/hobby-specific magazines to choose from. Use Writer’s Market to identify magazine options outside the bookstores. Narrow the groups from question 1 above to those that are reachable through one or two small magazines. It’s not important that these groups all have a lot of money (e.g., golfers)—only that they spend money (amateur athletes, bass fishermen, etc.) on products of some type. Call these magazines, speak to the advertising directors, and tell them that you are considering advertising; ask them to e-mail their current advertising rate card and include both readership numbers and magazine back-issue samples. Search the back issues for repeat advertisers who sell direct-to-consumer via 800 numbers or websites—the more repeat advertisers, and the more frequent their ads, the more profitable a magazine is for them … and will be for us.

11. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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. The goal is come up with well-formed product ideas and spend nothing; in Step 3, we will create advertising for them and test responses from real customers before investing in manufacturing. There are several criteria that ensure the end product will fit into an automated architecture.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

The main benefit of your product should be explainable in one sentence or phrase. How is it different and why should I buy it? ONE sentence or phrase, folks. Apple did an excellent job of this with the iPod. Instead of using the usual industry jargon with GB, bandwidth, and so forth, they simply said, “1,000 songs in your pocket.” Done deal. Keep it simple and do not move ahead with a product until you can do this without confusing people.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

It Should Cost the Customer $50–200. The bulk of companies set prices in the midrange, and that is where the most competition is. Pricing low is shortsighted, because someone else is always willing to sacrifice more profit margin and drive you both bankrupt. Besides perceived value, there are three main benefits to creating a premium, high-end image and charging more than the competition. Higher pricing means that we can sell fewer units—and thus manage fewer customers—and fulfill our dreamlines. It’s faster. Higher pricing attracts lower-maintenance customers (better credit, fewer complaints/questions, fewer returns, etc.). It’s less headache. This is HUGE. Higher pricing also creates higher profit margins. It’s safer.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

I personally aim for an 8–10× markup, which means a $100productcan’tcostmemorethan$10–12.50.27 If I had used the commonly recommended 5× markup with BrainQUICKEN, it would have gone bankrupt within 6 months due to a dishonest supplier and late magazine

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

I have found that a price range of $50–200 per sale provides the most profit for the least customer service hassle. Price high and then justify.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

High has its limits, however. If the per-unit price is above a certain point, prospects need to speak to someone on the phone before they are comfortable enough to make the purchase. This is contraindicated on our low-information diet.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

PURCHASING AN EXISTING product at wholesale and reselling it is the easiest route but also the least profitable. It is the fastest to set up but the fastest to die off due to price competition with other resellers. The profitable life span of each product is short unless an exclusivity agreement prevents others from selling it

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed. —VIDA D. SCUDDER, The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Three of the most successful television products of all time—all of which have spent more than 300 weeks on the infomercial top-10 bestseller lists—reflect the competitive and profit margin advantage of information products. No Down Payment (Carlton Sheets) Attacking Anxiety and Depression (Lucinda Bassett) Personal Power (Tony Robbins) I know from conversations with the principal owners of one of the above products that more than $65 million worth of information moved through their doors in 2002. Their infrastructure consisted of fewer than 25 in-house operators, and the rest of the infrastructure, ranging from media purchasing to shipping, was outsourced.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

On the opposite end of the market size spectrum, I know a man who created a low-budget how-to DVD for less than $200andsoldittoownersofstoragefacilitieswhowantedtoinstallsecuritysystems.It’shardtogetmorenichethanthat.In2001,sellingDVDsthatcost$2 to duplicate for $95 apiece through trade magazines, he made several hundred thousand dollars with no employees.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

But I’m Not an Expert! IF YOU AREN’T an expert, don’t sweat it. 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

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

expert status can be created in less than four weeks if you understand basic credibility indicators.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

The degree to which you personally need expert status also depends on how you obtain your content. There are three main options. Create the content yourself, often via paraphrasing and combining points from several books on a topic. Repurpose content that is in the public domain and not subject to copyright protection, such as government documents and material that predates modern copyright law. License content or compensate an expert to help create content. Fees can be one-time and paid up front or royalty-based (5–10% of net revenue, for example).

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Aim for a combination of formats that will lend itself to $50–200 pricing, such as a combination of two CDs (30–90 minutes each), a 40-page transcription of the CDs, and a 10-page quickstart guide.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Let’s assume you are a real estate broker and have determined that, like yourself, most brokers want a simple but good website to promote themselves and their businesses. If you read and understand the three top-selling books on home-page design, you will know more about that topic than 80% of the readership of a magazine for real estate brokers. If you can summarize the content and make recommendations specific to the needs of the real estate market, a 0.5–1.5% response from an ad you place in the magazine is not unreasonable to expect.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

10. 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.

11. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

12. 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. If you need help or want to speed up the process, consider the next question.

13. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

14. 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.

15. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

It took a friend of mine just three weeks to become a “top relationship expert who, as featured in Glamour and other national media, has counseled executives at Fortune 500 companies on how to improve their relationships in 24 hours or less.” How did she do it? She followed a few simple steps that created a credibility snowball effect. Here’s how you can do the same.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

10. Join two or three related trade organizations with official-sounding names. In her case, she chose the Association for Conflict Resolution (www.acrnet.org) and The International Foundation for Gender Education (www.ifge.org). This can be done online in five minutes with a credit card. 2. Read the three top-selling books on your topic (search historical New York Times bestseller lists online) and summarize each on one page.

11. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

12. Give one free one-to-three-hour seminar at the closest well-known university, using posters to advertise. Then do the same at branches of two well-known big companies (AT&T, IBM, etc.) located in the same area. Tell the company that you have given seminars at University X or X College and are a member of those groups from step 1. Emphasize that you are offering it to them for free to get additional speaking experience outside of academics and will not be selling products or services. Record the seminars from two angles for later potential use as a CD/DVD product.

13. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

14. Optional: Offer to write one or two articles for trade magazines related to your topics, citing what you have accomplished in steps 1 and 3 for credibility. If they decline, offer to interview a known expert and write the article—it still gets your name listed as a contributor.

15. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

16. Join ProfNet, which is a service that journalists use to find experts to quote for articles. Getting PR is simple if you stop shouting and start listening. Use steps 1, 3, and 4 to demonstrate credibility and online research to respond to journalist queries. Done properly, this will get you featured in media ranging from small local publications to the New York Times and ABC News.

17. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Becoming a recognized expert isn’t difficult, so I want to remove that barrier now. I am not recommending pretending to be something you’re not. I can’t! “Expert” is nebulous media-speak and so overused as to be indefinable. 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.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Presenting the truth in the best light, but not fabricating it, is the name of the game.

10. Income Autopilot II: Testing the Muse

Focus groups are equally misleading. Ask ten people if they would buy your product. Then tell those who said “yes” that you have ten units in your car and ask them to buy. The initial positive responses, given by people who want to be liked and aim to please, become polite refusals as soon as real money is at stake. 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.

10. Income Autopilot II: Testing the Muse

Johanna is a yoga instructor who has noticed her growing client base of rock climbers. She is also a rock climber and is considering creating a yoga instructional DVD tailored to that sport, which would include a 20-page spiral-bound manual and be priced at 80. She predicts that production of a low-budget first edition of the DVD would cost nothing more than a borrowed digital camera and a friend’s iMac for simple editing. She can burn small quantities of this first-edition DVD—no menus, just straight footage and titles—on the laptop and create labels with freeware from [www.download.com](https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.download.com&source=gmail-html&ust=1691401098915000&usg=AOvVaw3yAGDt3fIw7M8Bg0nFj6Am). She has contacted a duplication house and learned that more-professional DVDs will cost 3–5 apiece to duplicate in small quantities (minimum of 250), including cases.

10. Income Autopilot II: Testing the Muse

Sherwood and Johanna now need to create a one-page (300– 600 words) testimonial-rich advertisement that emphasizes their differentiators and product benefits using text and either personal photos or stock photos from stock photo websites. Both have spent two weeks collecting advertisements that have prompted them to make purchases or that have caught their attention in print or online—these will serve as models

10. Income Autopilot II: Testing the Muse

Our goal is qualified traffic, so we do not want to offer something “free” or otherwise attract window shoppers or the curious who are unlikely to buy.

10. Income Autopilot II: Testing the Muse

How did I come up with the most successful BodyQUICK headline (“The Fastest Way to Increase Power and Speed Guaranteed”)? I borrowed it from the longest-running, and thus most profitable, Rosetta Stone headline: “The Fastest Way to Learn a Language Guaranteed.™” Reinventing the wheel is expensive—become an astute observer of what is already working and adapt it. I keep a folder of all print and direct mail advertising that compels me to call a number or visit a website

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Our goal isn’t to create a business that is as large as possible, but rather a business that bothers us as little as possible. The architecture has to place us out of the information flow instead of putting us at the top of it. I didn’t get this right the first time I tried.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Option One: Resell a Product

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

Option Two: License a Product

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

There are two parties involved in a licensing deal, and a member of the New Rich could be either. First, there is the inventor of the product,30 called the “licensor,” who can sell others the right to manufacture, use, or sell his or her product, usually for 3–10% of the wholesale price (usually around 40% off retail) for each unit sold. Invent, let someone else do the rest, and cash checks. Not a bad model.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

The other side of the equation is the person interested in manufacturing and selling the inventor’s product for 90–97% of the profit: the licensee. This is, for me and most NR, more interesting. Licensing is, however, dealmaking-intensive on both sides and a science unto itself. Creative contract negotiation is essential and most readers will run into problems if it’s their first product

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

CREATING A PRODUCT is not complicated. “Create” sounds more involved than it actually is. If the idea is a hard product—an invention—it is possible to hire mechanical engineers or industrial designers on www.fourhourblog.com/elance to develop a prototype based on your description of its function and appearance, which is then taken to a contract manufacturer. If you find a generic or stock product made by a contract manufacturer that can be repurposed or positioned for a special market, it’s even easier: Have them manufacture it, stick a custom label on it for you, and presto—new product. This latter example is often referred to as “private labeling.” Have you ever seen a massage therapist’s office with its own line of vitamin products or the Kirkland brand at Costco? Private labeling in action.

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

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

9. Income Autopilot I: Finding the Muse

It’s easier to circumvent a patent than to paraphrase an entire course to avoid copyright infringement

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

I am not a tollbooth through which anything needs to pass. I am more like a police officer on the side of the road who can step in if need be, and I use detailed reports from outsourcers to ensure the cogs are moving as intended. I check reports from fulfillment each Monday and monthly reports from the same the first of each month. The latter reports include orders received from the call center, which I can compare to the call center bills to gauge profit. Otherwise, I just check bank accounts online on the first and fifteenth of each month to look for odd deductions. If I find something, one e-mail will fix it, and if not, it’s back to kendo, painting, hiking, or whatever I happen to be doing at the time.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

the main principles are the same: 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. Hire trained groups of people who can provide detailed reporting and replace one another as needed. 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 $100andmovedto$400 after two months).

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Removing Yourself from the Equation: When and How

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

The system is the solution. —AT&T

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Most entrepreneurs begin with the cheapest tools available, bootstrapping and doing things themselves to get up and running with little cash. This isn’t the problem. In fact, it’s necessary so that the entrepreneurs can train outsourcers later. The problem is that these same entrepreneurs don’t know when and how to replace themselves or their homemade infrastructure with something more scalable.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

By “scalable,” I mean a business architecture that can handle 10,000 orders per week as easily as it can handle 10 orders per week. Doing this requires minimizing your decision-making responsibilities, which achieves our goal of time freedom while setting the stage for doubling and tripling income with no change in hours worked.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Phase I: 0–50 Total Units of Product Shipped Do it all yourself. Put your phone number on the site for both general questions and order-taking—this is important in the beginning—and take customer calls to determine common questions that you will answer later in an online FAQ. This FAQ will also be the main material for training phone operators and developing sales scripts.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Is PPC, an offline advertisement, or your website too vague or misleading, thus attracting unqualified and time-consuming consumers? If so, change them to answer common questions and make the product benefits (including what it isn’t or doesn’t do) clearer. Answer all e-mail and save your responses in one folder called “customer service questions.” CC yourself on responses and put the nature of the customers’ questions in the subject lines for future indexing

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Phase II: >10 Units Shipped Per Week Add the extensive FAQ to your website and continue to add answers to common questions as received

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Find local fulfillment companies in the yellow pages under “fulfillment services” or “mailing services.”

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Phase III: >20 Units Shipped Per Week Now you will have the cash flow to afford the setup fees and the monthly minimums that bigger, more sophisticated outsourcers will ask for. Call the end-to-end fulfillment houses that handle it all—from order status to returns and refunds. Interview them about costs and ask them for referrals to call centers and credit card processors they’ve collaborated with for file transfers and problem solving. Don’t assemble an architecture of strangers—there will be programming costs and mistakes, both of which are expensive.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Optionally, set up an account with one of the call centers your new fulfillment center recommends. These will often have toll-free numbers you can use instead of purchasing your own. Look at the percentage split of online to phone orders during testing and consider carefully if the extra revenue from the latter is worth the hassle. It often isn’t. Those who call to order will generally order online if given no other option.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

the more options you offer the customer, the more manufacturing and customer service burden you create for yourself.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Here are a few methods that I and other NR have used to reduce service overhead 20–80%: Offer one or two purchase options (“basic” and “premium,” for example) and no more. Do not offer multiple shipping options. Offer one fast method instead and charge a premium. 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. 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. 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.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Some of these policies hint at what is perhaps the biggest time-saver of all: customer filtering

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Not All Customers Are Created Equal

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

ONCE YOU REACH Phase III and have some cash flow, it’s time to reevaluate your customers and thin the herd

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

I recommend looking at the customer as an equal trading partner and not as an infallible blessing of a human being to be pleased at all costs. If you offer an excellent product at an acceptable price, it is an equal trade and not a begging session between subordinate (you) and superior (customer). Be professional but never kowtow to unreasonable people. Instead of dealing with problem customers, I recommend you prevent them from ordering in the first place. I know dozens of NR who don’t accept Western Union or checks as payment. Some would respond to this with, “You’re giving up 10–15% of your sales!” The NR, in turn, would say, “I am, but I’m also avoiding the 10–15% of the customers who create 40% of the expenses and eat 40% of my time.” It’s classic 80/20.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Those who spend the least and ask for the most before ordering will do the same after the sale. Cutting them out is both a good lifestyle decision and a good financial decision. Low-profit and high-maintenance customers like to call operators and spend up to 30 minutes on the phone asking questions that are unimportant or answered online, costing—in my case—$24.90(30\times$0.83) per 30-minute incident, eliminating the minuscule profit they contribute in the first place.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Those who spend the most complain the least

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

THE 30-DAY MONEY-BACK guarantee is dead. It just doesn’t have the pizzazz it once did. If a product doesn’t work, I’ve been lied to and will have to spend an afternoon at the post office to return it. This costs me more than just the price I paid for the product, both in time and actual postage. Risk elimination just isn’t enough. This is where we enter the neglected realm of lose-win guarantees and risk reversal. The NR use what most consider an afterthought—the guarantee—as a cornerstone sales tool. The NR aim to make it profitable for the customer even if the product fails. Lose-win guarantees not only remove risk for the consumer but put the company at financial risk. Here are a few examples of putting your money where your mouth is.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Delivered in 30 minutes or less or it’s free! (Domino’s Pizza built its business on this guarantee.)

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

We’re so confident you’ll like CIALIS, if you don’t we’ll pay for the brand of your choice. (The “CIALIS® Promise Program” offers a free sample of CIALIS and then offers to pay for competing products if CIALIS doesn’t live up to the hype.)

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

If your car is stolen, we’ll pay $500 of your insurance deductible. (This guarantee helped THE CLUB become the 1-selling mechanical automobile anti-theft device in the world.)

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

110% guaranteed to work within 60 minutes of the first dose. (This was for BodyQUICK and a first among sports nutrition products. I offered to not only refund customers the price of the product if it didn’t work within 60 minutes of the first dose, but also to send them a check for 10% more.)

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Returns for BodyQUICK, even with a 60-day return period (and partially because of it57), are less than 3% in an industry in which the average is 12–15% for a normal 30-day 100% money-back guarantee. Sales increased more than 300% within four weeks of introducing the 110% guarantee, and returns decreased overall.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

In addition to our premium $50–200 pricing, here are a few additional policies that attract the high-profit and low-maintenance customers we want: Do not accept payment via Western Union, checks, or money order. Raise wholesale minimums to 12–100 units

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Offer a lose-win guarantee (see boxed text) instead of free trials.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

The Lose-Win Guarantee—How to Sell Anything to Anyone

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

12. Don’t be the CEO or founder. Being the “CEO” or “Founder” screams start-up. Give yourself the mid-level title of “vice president” (VP), “director,” or something similar that can be added to depending on the occasion (Director of Sales, Director of Business Development, etc.). For negotiation purposes as well, remember that it is best not to appear to be the ultimate decision-maker.

13. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

How to Look Fortune 500 in 45 Minutes

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

12. Put multiple e-mail and phone contacts on the website. Put various e-mail addresses on the “contact us” page for different departments, such as “human resources,” “sales,” “general inquiries,” “wholesale distribution,” “media/PR,” “investors,” “web comments,” “order status,” and so on. In the beginning, these will all forward to your e-mail address. In Phase III, most will forward to the appropriate outsourcers. Multiple toll-free numbers can be used in the same fashion.

13. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

14. Set up an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) remote receptionist. It is possible to sound like a blue chip for less than $30. In fewer than ten minutes on a site such as www.angel.com, which boasts clients such as Reebok and Kellog’s, it is possible to set up an 800 number that greets callers with a voice prompt such as, “Thank you for calling [business name]. Please say the name of the person or department you would like to reach or just hold on for a list of options.” Upon speaking your name or selecting the appropriate department, the caller is forwarded to your preferred phone or the appropriate outsourcer—with on-hold music and all.

15. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

16. Do not provide home addresses. Do not use your home address or you will get visitors. Prior to securing an end-to-end fulfillment house that can handle checks and money orders—if you decide to accept them—use a post office box but leave out the “PO Box” and include the street address of the post office itself. Thus “PO Box 555, Nowhere, US 11936” becomes “Suite 555, 1234 Downtown Ave., US 11936.”

17. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Go forth and project professionalism with a well-designed image. Perceived size does matter.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

It isn’t enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to acting outside the box.

11. Income Autopilot III: MBA—Management by Absence

Hey Tim, You mentioned www.weebly.com a few months ago, and I’ve been using that to build all my muse sites and think it’s great! Also, Facebook groups has (almost) every niche imaginable. So what I have found success in doing is: (1) Finding a niche group that would buy my muse, (2) sending a message to each admin telling them how my muse will help their group members. Then politely asking them to put a blurb in the “Recent News” section of the group. This makes it more trustworthy than a wall post, and it stays up there (free advertising) until the admin removes it. One hundred times better than a wall post. In one case, the admin purchased my muse, posted my note for me on the groups’ “Recent News” section, then e-mailed the entire group telling them they have to check out my site.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

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 Prizes

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

The New Rich are defined by a more elusive power than simple cash—unrestricted mobility. This jet-setting is not limited to start-up owners or freelancers. Employees can pull it off, too.58

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

BestBuy, the consumer electronics giant, is now sending thousands of employees home from their HQ in Minnesota and claims not only lowered costs, but also a 10–20% increase in results. The new mantra is this: Work wherever and whenever you want, but get your work done.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

TO CREATE THE proper leverage to be unshackled, we’ll do two things: demonstrate the business benefit of remote working and make it too expensive or excruciating to refuse a request for it.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

He is a mechanical engineer and is producing twice as many designs in half the time since erasing 90% of his time-wasters and interruptions. This quantum leap in performance has been noticed by his supervisors and his value to the company has increased, making it more expensive to lose him. More value means more leverage for negotiations.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Sherwood has been sure to hold back some of his productivity and efficiency so that he can highlight a sudden jump in both during a remote work trial period.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Step 1: Increase Investment First, he speaks with his boss on July 12 about additional training that might be available to employees. He proposes having the company pay for a four-week industrial design class to help him better interface with clients, being sure to mention the benefit to the boss and business (i.e., he’ll decrease intradepartmental back-and-forth and increase both client results and billable time). Sherwood wants the company to invest as much as possible in him so that the loss is greater if he quits.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Step 2: Prove Increased Output Offsite

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Step 3: Prepare the Quantifiable Business Benefit Third, Sherwood creates a bullet-point list of how much more he achieved outside the office with explanations. He realizes that he needs to present remote working as a good business decision and not a personal perk. The quantifiable end result was three more designs per day than his usual average and three total hours of additional billable client time. For explanations, he identifies removal of commute and fewer distractions from office noise.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Step 4: Propose a Revocable Trial Period Fourth, fresh off completing the comfort challenges from previous chapters, Sherwood confidently proposes an innocent one-day-per-week remote work trial period for two weeks. He plans a script in advance but does not make it a PowerPoint presentation or otherwise give it the appearance of something serious or irreversible.61 Sherwood knocks on his boss’s office door around 3 P.M. on a relatively relaxed Thursday, July 27, the week after his absence

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

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.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

13. 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?”)

14. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Do not digress from your goal. Once you’ve addressed an objection or concern, go for the close

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Friday is the best day to be in the office. People are relaxed and tend to leave early.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Do not accept a vague refusal. Pinpointing the main concern in detail enables you to overcome it

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Don’t jump to the defensive after an objection. Acknowledge the validity of a boss’s concerns to prevent an ego-driven battle of wills.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

Note this indirect threat dressed as a confession. It will make the boss think twice about refusing but prevents the win-lose outcome of an ultimatum.

12. Disappearing Act: How to Escape the Office

and footnotes explain negotiating points. Sherwood: Hi, Bill. Do you have a quick second? Bill: Sure. What’s up? Sherwood: I just wanted to bounce an idea off of you that’s been on my mind. Two minutes should be plenty. Bill: OK. Shoot. Sherwood: Last week, as you know, I was sick. Long story short, I decided to work at home despite feeling terrible. So here’s the funny part. I thought I would get nothing done, but ended up finishing three more designs than usual on both days. Plus, I put in three more billable hours than usual without the commute, office noise, distractions, etc. OK, so here’s where I’m going. Just as a trial, I’d like to propose working from home Mondays and Tuesdays for just two weeks. You can veto it whenever you want, and I’ll come in if we need to do meetings, but I’d like to try it for just two weeks and review the results. I’m 100% confident that I’ll get twice as much done. Does that seem reasonable? Bill: Hmm … What if we need to share client designs? Sherwood: There’s a program called GoToMyPC that I used to access the office computer when I was sick. I can view everything remotely, and I’ll have my cell phone on me 24/7. Sooooo … What do you think? Test it out starting next Monday and see how much more I get done?62 Bill: Ummm … OK, fine. But it’s just a test. I have a meeting in five and have to run, but let’s talk soon. Sherwood: Great. Thanks for the time. I’ll keep you posted on it all. I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Sherwood didn’t expect to get two days per week approved. He asked for two so that, in the case his boss refused, he could ask for just one as a fallback position (bracketing). Why didn’t Sherwood go for five days remote per week? Two reasons. First, it’s a lot for management to accept off the bat. We need to ask for an inch and turn it into a foot without setting off panic alarms. Second, it is a good idea to hone your remote-working abilities—rehearse a bit—before shooting for the big time, as it decreases the likelihood of crises and screwups that will get remote rights revoked. Step 5: Expand Remote Time Sherwood ensures that his days outside of the office are his most productive to date, even minimally dropping in-office production to heighten the contrast. He sets a meeting to discuss the results with his boss on August 15 and prepares a bullet-point page detailing increased results and items completed compared to in-office time. He suggests upping the ante to four days per week remote for a two-week trial, fully prepared to concede to three days if need be. Sherwood: It really turned out even better than I expected. If you look at the numbers, it makes a lot of business sense, and I’m enjoying work a lot more now. So, here we are. I’d like to suggest, if you think it makes sense, that I try four days a week for another two-week trial. I was thinking that coming in Friday63 would make sense to prepare for the coming week, but we could do whichever day you prefer. Bill: Sherwood, I’m really not sure we can do that. Sherwood: What’s your main concern?64 Bill: It seems like you’re on your way out. I mean, are you going to quit on us? Second, what if everyone wants to do the same? Sherwood: Fair enough. Good points.65 First, to be honest, I was close to quitting before, with all the interruptions and commute and whatnot, but I’m actually feeling great now with the change in routine.66 I’m doing more and feel relaxed for a change. Second, no one should be allowed to work remotely unless they can show increased productivity, and I’m the perfect experiment. If they can show it, however, why not let them do it on a trial basis? It lowers costs for the office, increases productivity, and makes employees happier. So, what do you say? Can I test it out for two weeks and come in Fridays to take care of the office stuff? I’ll still document everything, and you, of course, have the right to change your mind at any point. Bill: Man, you are an insistent one. OK, we’ll give it a shot, but don’t go blabbing about it. Sherwood: Of course. Thanks, Bill. I appreciate the trust. Talk to you soon.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer. —NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI, The Prince

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

SOME JOBS ARE simply beyond repair. Improvements would be like adding a set of designer curtains to a jail cell: better but far from good

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

Getting fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you scrambling to recover, is often a godsend: Someone else makes the decision for you, and it’s impossible to sit in the wrong job for the rest of your life. Most people aren’t lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30–40 years of tolerating the mediocre.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

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

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn’t make it productive or worthwhile.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

Just because you are embarrassed to admit that you’re still living the consequences of bad decisions made 5, 10, or 20 years ago shouldn’t stop you from making good decisions now

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

If you let pride stop you, you will hate life 5, 10, and 20 years from now for the same reasons

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner. Going into a project or job without defining when worthwhile becomes wasteful is like going into a casino without a cap on what you will gamble: dangerous and foolish.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain. —COLIN WILSON, British author of The Outsider; New Existentialist

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

THERE ARE SEVERAL principal phobias that keep people on sinking ships, and there are simple rebuttals for all of them. 1. Quitting is permanent.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

. I have never seen an example where a change of direction wasn’t somehow reversible.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

14. I won’t be able to pay the bills.

15. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

Sure you will. First of all, the objective will be to have a new job or source of cash flow before quitting your current job. Problem solved. If you jump ship or get fired, it isn’t hard to eliminate most expenses temporarily and live on savings for a brief period. From renting out your home to refinancing or selling it, there are options. There are always options.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

Don’t be melodramatic when there is no need—few things are fatal, particularly for smart people. If you’ve made it this far in life, losing or dropping a job will often be little more than a few weeks of vacation (unless you want more) prior to something better.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

The first is the result of a decision to act—to do something. This type of mistake is made with incomplete information, as it’s impossible to have all the facts beforehand. This is to be encouraged. Fortune favors the bold. The second is the result of a decision of sloth—to not do something—wherein we refuse to change a bad situation out of fear despite having all the facts. This is how learning experiences become terminal punishments, bad relationships become bad marriages, and poor job choices become lifelong prison sentences.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

14. First, a familiar reality check: Are you more likely to find what you want in your current job or somewhere else?

15. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

Here are a few exercises to help you realize just how natural job changes are and how simple the transition can be.

13. Beyond Repair: Killing Your Job

14. If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?

15. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

The simple willingness to improvise is more vital, in the long run, than research. —ROLF POTTS, Vagabonding

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and its fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgment. —PAUL FUSSELL, Abroad

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

If your dream, the pot of gold at the end of the career rainbow, is to live large in Thailand, sail around the Caribbean, or ride a motorcycle across China, guess what? All of them can be done for less than $3,000. I’ve done all three. Here are just two examples of how far a little can go.68

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

IF YOU ARE accustomed to working 50 weeks per year, the tendency, even after creating the mobility to take extended trips, will be to go nuts and see 10 countries in 14 days and end up a wreck. It’s like taking a starving dog to an all-you-can-eat buffet. It will eat itself to death. I did this three months into my 15-month vision quest, visiting seven countries and going through at least 20 check-ins and checkouts with a friend who had negotiated three weeks off. The trip was an adrenaline-packed blast but like watching life on fast-forward. It was hard for us to remember what had happened in which countries (except Amsterdam),69 we were both sick most of the time, and we were upset to have to leave some places simply because our pre-purchased flights made it so.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

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. It is the anti-vacation in the most positive sense. Though it can be relaxing, the mini-retirement is not an escape from your life but a reexamination of it—the creation of a blank slate

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

Sometimes these sojourns take me around the world; oftentimes they take me around the corner—Yosemite, Tahoe, Carmel—but to a different world psychologically, where meetings, e-mail, and phone calls don’t exist for a set period of time.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

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. One cannot be free from the stresses of a speed- and size-obsessed culture until you are free from the materialistic addictions, time-famine mind-set, and comparative impulses that created it in the first place.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

In the experience of those I’ve interviewed, it takes two to three months just to unplug from obsolete routines and become aware of just how much we distract ourselves with constant motion. Can you have a two-hour dinner with Spanish friends without getting anxious? Can you get accustomed to a small town where all businesses take a siesta for two hours in the afternoon and then close at 4:00 P.M.? If not, you need to ask, Why? 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.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

Several families interviewed for this book recommended the oldest persuasive tool known to man: bribery. Each child is given some amount of virtual cash, 25–50 cents, for each hour of good behavior. The same amount is subtracted from their accounts for breaking the rules. All purchases for fun—whether souvenirs, ice cream, or otherwise—come out of their own individual accounts. No balance, no goodies. This often requires more self-control on the part of the parents than the children.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

Human beings have the capacity to learn to want almost any conceivable material object. Given, then, the emergence of a modern industrial culture capable of producing almost anything, the time is ripe for opening the storehouse of infinite need! … It is the modern Pandora’s box, and its plagues are loose upon the world. —JULES HENRY

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

There are tons of things in your home and life that you don’t use, need, or even particularly want. They just came into your life as impulsive flotsam and jetsam and never found a good exit. Whether you’re aware of it or not, this clutter creates indecision and distractions, consuming attention and making unfettered happiness a real chore

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

It is impossible to realize how distracting all the crap is—whether porcelain dolls, sports cars, or ragged T-shirts—until you get rid of it.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

I realized a few things: I would never reread the business magazines I’d saved, I wore the same five shirts and four pairs of pants 90% of the time, it was about time for new furniture, and I never used the outdoor grill or lawn furniture. Even getting rid of things I never used proved to be like a capitalist short-circuit. It was hard to toss things I had once thought were valuable enough to spend money on. The first ten minutes of sorting through clothing was like choosing which child of mine should live or die. I hadn’t exercised my throwing-out muscles in some time. It was a struggle to put nice Christmas clothing I’d never worn into the “go” pile and just as hard to separate myself from worn and ragged clothing I had for sentimental reasons. Once I’d passed through the first few tough decisions, though, the momentum had been built and it was a breeze. I donated all of the seldom-worn clothing to Goodwill. The furniture took less than 10 hours to off-load using Craigslist, and though I was paid less than 50% of the retail prices for some and nothing for others, who cared? I’d used and abused them for five years and would get a new set when I landed back in the U.S. I gave the grill and lawn furniture to my friend, who lit up like a kid at Christmas. I had made his month. It felt wonderful and I had an extra $300 in pocket change to cover at least a few weeks of rent abroad. I created 40% more space in my apartment and hadn’t even grazed the surface. It wasn’t the extra physical space that I felt most. It was the extra mental space. It was as if I had 20 mental applications running simultaneously before, and now I had just one or two. My thinking was clearer and I was much, much happier.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

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.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

The overpacking impulse is hard to resist. The solution is to set what I call a “settling fund.” Rather than pack for all contingencies, I bring the absolute minimum and allocate $100–300 for purchasing things after I arrive and as I travel. I no longer take toiletries or more than a week’s worth of clothing. It’s a blast. Finding shaving cream or a dress shirt overseas can produce an adventure in and of itself. Pack as if you were coming back in one week

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

To laptop or not to laptop? Unless you are a writer, I vote no. It’s far too cumbersome and distracting. Using GoToMyPC to access your home computer from Internet cafés encourages the habit we want to develop: making the best use of time instead of killing it.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

In all cases where doubts crop up, ask yourself, “If I had a gun to my head and had to do it, how would I do it?” It’s not as hard as you think.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

What is the 20% of my belongings that I use 80% of the time? Eliminate the other 80% in clothing, magazines, books, and all else. Be ruthless—you can always repurchase things you can’t live without. Which belongings create stress in my life? This could relate to maintenance costs (money and energy), insurance, monthly expenses, time consumption, or simple distraction. Eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. If you sell even a few expensive items, it could finance a good portion of your mini-retirement

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

have all mail forwarded to a friend, family member, or personal assistant,78 who will be paid $100–200 per month to e-mail you brief descriptions of all nonjunk mail each Monday.

14. Mini-Retirements: Embracing the Mobile Lifestyle

Decide on a schedule for routine batched tasks such as e-mail, online banking, etc. to eliminate excuses for senseless pseudo-work procrasterbating. I suggest Monday mornings for checking e-mail and online banking. The first and third Mondays of the month can be used for checking credit cards and making other online payments such as affiliates. These promises to yourself will be the hardest to keep, so make a commitment now and expect serious withdrawal cravings

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

The retired and ultrarich are often unfulfilled and neurotic for the same reason: too much idle time.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Too much free time is no more than fertilizer for self-doubt and assorted mental tail-chasing. Subtracting the bad does not create the good. It leaves a vacuum. Decreasing income-driven work isn’t the end goal. Living more—and becoming more—is.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

In the beginning, the external fantasies will be enough, and there is nothing wrong with this. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this period. Go nuts and live your dreams. This is not superficial or selfish. It is critical to stop repressing yourself and get out of the postponement habit.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Retirees get depressed for a second reason, and you will too: social isolation.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Offices are good for some things: free bad coffee and complaining thereof, gossip and commiserating, stupid video clips via e-mail with even stupider comments, and meetings that accomplish nothing but kill a few hours with a few laughs. The job itself might be a dead end, but it’s the web of human interactions—the social environment—that keeps us there

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Once liberated, this automatic tribal unit disappears, which makes the voices in your head louder.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

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 Myth

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

ONCE YOU ELIMINATE the 9–5 and the rubber hits the road, it’s not all roses and white-sand bliss, though much of it can be. Without the distraction of deadlines and co-workers, the big questions (such as “What does it all mean?”) become harder to fend off for a later time. In a sea of infinite options, decisions also become harder—What the hell should I do with my life? It’s like senior year in college all over again.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

you’ll begin to question your decision to step off the treadmill. Common doubts and self-flagellation include the following:

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Why am I not happy? I can do anything and I’m still not happy. Do I even deserve it?

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

These doubts invade the mind when nothing else fills it. Think of a time when you felt 100% alive and undistracted—in the zone. Chances are that it was when you were completely focused in the moment on something external: someone or something else. Sports and sex are two great examples. Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow,81 these doubts disappear.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

In the process of searching for a new focus, it is almost inevitable that the “big” questions will creep in

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Two popular examples are “What is the meaning of life?” and “What is the point of it all?”

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

I’ve spent more than a decade investigating the mind and concept of meaning, a quest that has taken me from the neuroscience laboratories of top universities to the halls of religious institutions worldwide. The conclusion after it all is surprising. 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.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

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

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

“What is the meaning of life?” fails the first and thus the second. Questions about things beyond your sphere of influence like “What if the train is late tomorrow?” fail the second and should thus be ignored. These are not worthwhile questions. If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it. If you take just this point from this book, it will put you in the top 1% of performers in the world and keep most philosophical distress out of your life.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

I BELIEVE THAT life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself. Each person will have his or her own vehicles for both, and those vehicles will change over time. For some, the answer will be working with orphans, and for others, it will be composing music. I have a personal answer to both—to love, be loved, and never stop learning—but I don’t expect that to be universal.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

based on the dozens of fulfilled NR I’ve interviewed, there are two components that are fundamental: continual learning and service.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

acquiring a new language makes you aware of your own language: your own thoughts. The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as under-estimated as the difficulty is overestimated.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

theoretical linguists will disagree, but I know from research and personal experimentation with more than a dozen languages that (1) adults can learn languages much faster than children83 when constant 9–5 work is removed and that (2) it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Revisit ground zero: Do nothing. Before we can escape the goblins of the mind, we need to face them. Principal among them is speed addiction. It is hard to recalibrate your internal clock without taking a break from constant overstimulation. Travel and the impulse to see a million things can exacerbate this.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Slowing down doesn’t mean accomplishing less; it means cutting out counterproductive distractions and the perception of being rushed. Consider attending a short silence retreat of 3–7 days during which all media and speaking is prohibited.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

note self-criticisms and negative self-talk in a journal. Whenever upset or anxious, ask “why” at least three times and put the answers down on paper. Describing these doubts in writing reduces their impact twofold. First, it’s often the ambiguous nature of self-doubt that hurts most. Defining and exploring it in writing—just as with forcing colleagues to e-mail—demands clarity of thought, after which most concerns are found to be baseless. Second, recording these concerns seems to somehow remove them from your head.

15. Filling the Void: Adding Life After Subtracting Work

Revisit and reset dreamlines. Following the mini-retirement, revisit the dreamlines set in Definition and reset them as needed. The following questions will help: What are you good at? What could you be the best at? What makes you happy? What excites you? What makes you feel accomplished and good about yourself? What are you most proud of having accomplished in your life? Can you repeat this or further develop it? What do you enjoy sharing or experiencing with other people?

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Here are the slipups you will make. Don’t get frustrated. It’s all part of the process.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Losing sight of dreams and falling into work for work’s sake (W4W)

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Micromanaging and e-mailing to fill time

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Set the responsibilities, problem scenarios and rules, and limits of autonomous decision-making—then stop, for the sanity of everyone involved.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Handling problems your outsourcers or co-workers can handle

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Helping outsourcers or co-workers with the same problem more than once, or with noncrisis problems

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Give them if-then rules for solving all but the largest problems. Give them the freedom to act without your input, set the limits in writing, and then emphasize in writing that you will not respond to help with problems that are covered by these rules. In my particular case, all outsourcers have at their discretion the ability to fix any problem that will cost less than $400. At the end of each month or quarter, depending on the outsourcer, I review how their decisions have affected profit and adjust the rules accordingly, often adding new rules based on their good decisions and creative solutions.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Chasing customers, particularly unqualified or international prospects, when you have sufficient cash flow to finance your nonfinancial pursuits

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Answering e-mail that will not result in a sale or that can be answered by a FAQ or auto-responder For a good example of an auto-responder that directs people to the appropriate information and outsourcers, e-mail [email protected].

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Working where you live, sleep, or should relax

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

designate a single space for work and solely work—or you will never be able to escape it.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

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

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Striving for endless perfection rather than great or simply good enough, whether in your personal or professional life Recognize that this is often just another W4W excuse.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Making non-time-sensitive issues urgent in order to justify work How many times do I have to say it? Focus on life outside of your bank accounts, as scary as that void can be in the initial stages. If you cannot find meaning in your life, it is your responsibility as a human being to create it, whether that is fulfilling dreams or finding work that gives you purpose and selfworth—ideally a combination of both.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Viewing one product, job, or project as the end-all and be-all of your existence

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Life is too short to waste, but it is also too long to be a pessimist or nihilist. Whatever you’re doing now is just a stepping-stone to the next project or adventure. Any rut you get into is one you can get yourself out of. Doubts are no more than a signal for action of some type. When in doubt or overwhelmed, take a break and 80/20 both business and personal activities and relationships.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

Surround yourself with smiling, positive people who have absolutely nothing to do with work. 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.

16. The Top 13 New Rich Mistakes

to be correct 95% of the time requires six months of concentrated effort, whereas to be correct 98% of the time requires 20–30 years. Focus on great for a few things and good enough for the rest. Perfection is a good ideal and direction to have, but recognize it for what it is: an impossible destination.

The Last Chapter: An E-mail You Need to Read

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something … almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. 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,

The Last Chapter: An E-mail You Need to Read

IF YOU’RE CONFUSED about life, you’re not alone. There are almost seven billion of us. This isn’t a problem, of course, once you realize that life is neither a problem to be solved nor a game to be won.

The Last Chapter: An E-mail You Need to Read

If you are too intent on making the pieces of a nonexistent puzzle fit, you miss out on all the real fun. The heaviness of success-chasing can be replaced with a serendipitous lightness when you recognize that the only rules and limits are those we set for ourselves.

The Last Chapter: An E-mail You Need to Read

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

The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen

Once you realize that you can turn off the noise without the world ending, you’re liberated in a way that few people ever know. Just remember: If you don’t have attention, you don’t have time. Did I have time to check e-mail and voicemail? Sure. It might take 10 minutes. Did I have the attention to risk fishing for crises in those 10 minutes? Not at all. As tempting as it is to “just check e-mail for one minute,” I didn’t do it. I know from experience that any problem found in the inbox will linger in the brain for hours or days after you shut down the computer, rendering “free time” useless with preoccupation. It’s the worst of states, where you experience neither relaxation nor productivity. Be focused on work or focused on something else, never in-between.

The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen

Time without attention is worthless, so value attention over time.

The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen

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

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

Make this trade a habit. Let the small bad things happen and make the big good things happen.

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

Favorite reads of 2008: Zorba the Greek and Seneca: Letters from a Stoic. These are two of the most readable books of practical philosophies I’ve ever had the fortune to encounter. If you have to choose one, get Zorba, but Lucius Seneca will take you further. Both are fast reads of 2–3 evenings.

The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen

What is the one goal, if completed, that could change everything? What is the most urgent thing right now that you feel you “must” or “should” do?

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

Don’t accept large or costly favors from strangers. This karmic debt will come back to haunt you. If you can’t pass it up, immediately return to karmic neutrality with a gift of your choosing. Repay it before they set the terms for you. Exceptions: über-successful mentors who are making introductions and not laboring on your behalf.

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

I own a home in San Jose but moved almost 12 months ago. It’s been empty since, and I’m paying a large mortgage each month. The best part? I don’t care. But this wasn’t always the case. For many months, I felt demoralized as others pressured me to rent it, emphasizing how I was just flushing money away otherwise. Then I realized: You don’t have to make money back the same way you lose it. If you lose $1,000 at the blackjack table, should you try and recoup it there? Of course not. I don’t want to deal with renters, even with a property management company. The solution: Leave the house alone, use it on occasion, and just create incoming revenue elsewhere that would cover the cost of the mortgage through consulting, publishing, etc.

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

Slow meals = life. From Daniel Gilbert of Harvard to Martin Seligman of Princeton, the “happiness” (self-reported well-being) researchers seem to agree on one thing: Mealtime with friends and loved ones is a direct predictor of well-being. Have at least one 2-to-3-hour dinner and/or drinks per week—yes, 2–3 hours—with those who make you smile and feel good.

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

Adversity doesn’t build character; it reveals it.

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

Money doesn’t change you; it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

Eat a high-protein breakfast within 30 minutes of waking and go for a 10-to-20-minute walk outside afterward, ideally bouncing a handball or tennis ball. This one habit is better than a handful of Prozac in the morning.

Things I’ve Loved and Learned in 2008

I dislike losing money about 50× more than I like making it. Why 50×? Logging time as an experiment, I concluded that I often spend at least 50× more time to prevent a hypothetical unit of $100 from being lost vs. earned. The hysterical part is that, even after becoming aware of this bias, it’s hard to prevent the latter response. Therefore, I manipulate the environmental causes of poor responses instead of depending on error-prone self-discipline.

The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm

One tome jumped out at me as all too appropriate—The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen or read Barry Schwartz’s 2004 classic, but it seemed like a good time to revisit the principles, among them, that: The more options you consider, the more buyer’s regret you’ll have. The more options you encounter, the less fulfilling your ultimate outcome will be.

The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm

Income is renewable, but some other resources—like attention—are not. I’ve talked before about attention as a currency and how it determines the value of time.

The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm

Is your weekend really free if you find a crisis in the inbox Saturday morning that you can’t address until Monday morning? Even if the inbox scan lasts 30 seconds, the preoccupation and forward projection for the subsequent 48 hours effectively deletes that experience from your life. You had time but you didn’t have attention, so the time had no practical value. The choice-minimal lifestyle becomes an attractive tool when we consider two truths. Considering options costs attention that then can’t be spent on action or present-state awareness. Attention is necessary for not only productivity but appreciation. Therefore: Too many choices = less or no productivity Too many choices = less or no appreciation Too many choices = sense of overwhelm What to do? There are six basic rules or formulas that can be used: 1. Set rules for yourself so you can automate as much decision making as possible [see the rules I use to outsource my e-mail to Canada, included at the end of this section, as an example of this]. 2. Don’t provoke deliberation before you can take action. One simple example: Don’t scan the inbox on Friday evening or over the weekend if you might encounter work problems that can’t be addressed until Monday. 3. Don’t postpone decisions just to avoid uncomfortable conversations. If an acquaintance asks you if you want to come to their house for dinner next week, and you know you won’t, don’t say, “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know next week.” Instead, use something soft but conclusive like, “Next week? I’m pretty sure I have another commitment on Thursday, but thank you for the invite. Just so I don’t leave you hanging, let’s assume I can’t make it, but can I let you know if that changes?” Decision made. Move on. 4. Learn to make nonfatal or reversible decisions as quickly as possible. Set time limits (I won’t consider options for more than 20 minutes), option limits (I’ll consider no more than three options), or finance thresholds (Example: If it costs less than $100[orthepotentialdamageislessthan$100], I’ll let a virtual assistant make the judgment call). I wrote most of this post after landing at the monster that is ATL airport in Atlanta. I could have considered half a dozen types of ground transportation in 15 minutes and saved 30–40%, but I grabbed a taxi instead. To use illustrative numbers: I didn’t want to sacrifice 10 attention units of my remaining 50 of 100 total potential units, since those 10 units couldn’t then be spent on this article. I had about eight hours before bedtime due to time zone differences—plenty of time—but scarce usable attention after an all-nighter of fun and the cross-country flight. Fast decisions preserve usable attention for what matters. 5. Don’t strive for variation—and thus increase option consideration—when it’s not needed. Routine enables innovation where it’s most valuable. In working with athletes, for example, it’s clear that those who maintain the lowest bodyfat percentage eat the same foods over and over with little variation. I’ve eaten the same “slow-carb” breakfast and lunch for nearly two years,88 putting variation only into meals that I focus on for enjoyment: dinner and all meals on Saturdays. This same routine-variation distinction can be found in exercise vs. recreation. For fat loss and muscle gain (even as much as 34 pounds in four weeks), I’ve followed the same time—minimal exercise protocol with occasional experiments since 1996. For recreation, however, where the focus is enjoyment and not efficacy, I tend to try something new each weekend, whether climbing at Mission Cliffs in San Francisco or mountain biking from tasting to tasting in Napa. Don’t confuse what should be results-driven with routine (e.g., exercise) with something enjoyment-driven that benefits from variation (e.g., recreation). 6. Regret is past-tense decision making. Eliminate complaining to minimize regret. Condition yourself to notice complaints and stop making them with a simple program like the “21-day no-complaint experiment” made famous by Will Bowen, where you wear a single bracelet and move it from one wrist to the other each time you complain. The goal is 21 days without complaining and you reset to 0 each time you slip up. This increased awareness helps prevent useless past-tense deliberation and negative emotions that improve nothing but deplete your attention.

The Choice-Minimal Lifestyle: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm

DECISION-MAKING ISN’T to be avoided—that’s not the problem. Look at a good CEO or top corporate performer and you’ll see a high volume of decisions. It’s deliberation—the time we vacillate over and consider each decision—that’s the attention consumer. Total deliberation time, not the number of decisions, determines your attention bank account balance (or debt).

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

“NOT-TO-DO” LISTS ARE often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance. The reason is simple: What you don’t do determines what you can do.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

4. Do not let people ramble. Forget “How’s it going?” when someone calls you. Stick with “What’s up?” or “I’m in the middle of getting something out, but what’s going on?” A big part of GTD (Getting Things Done) is GTP—Getting To the Point.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time. If the desired outcome is defined clearly with a stated objective and agenda listing topics/questions to cover, no meeting or call should last more than 30 minutes

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

Here are nine stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

2. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night. The former scrambles your priorities and plans for the day, and the latter just gives you insomnia.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

5. Do not check e-mail constantly—“batch” and check at set times only.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

6. Do not over-communicate with low-profit, high-maintenance customers. There is no sure path to success, but the surest path to failure is trying to please everyone. Do an 80/20 analysis of your customer base in two ways—which 20% are producing 80%+ of my profit, and which 20% are consuming 80% + of my time? Then put the loudest and least productive on autopilot by citing a change in company policies.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

7. Do not work more to fix overwhelmingness—prioritize. If you don’t prioritize, everything seems urgent and important. If you define the single most important task for each day, almost nothing seems urgent or important. Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of letting little bad things happen (return a phone call late and apologize, pay a small late fee, lose an unreasonable customer, etc.) to get the big important things done. The answer to overwhelmingness is not spinning more plates—or doing more—it’s defining the few things that can really fundamentally change your business and life.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

8. Do not carry a cell phone or Crackberry 24/7. Take at least one day off of digital leashes per week. Turn them off or, better still, leave them in the garage or in the car.

The Not-to-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now

9. Do not expect work to fill a void that non-work relationships and activities should. Work is not all of life. Your co-workers shouldn’t be your only friends

The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months

The financial goal of a start-up should be simple: profit in the least time with the least effort. Not more customers, not more revenue, not more offices or more employees. More profit.

The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months

here’s the secret: It’s possible to niche market and mass sell. iPod commercials don’t feature dancing 50-year-olds, they feature hip and fit 20- and 30-somethings, but everyone and his grandmother wants to feel youthful and hip, so they strap on Nanos and call themselves Apple converts. Who you portray in your marketing isn’t necessarily the only demographic who buys your product—it’s often the demographic that most people want to identify with or belong to. The target isn’t the market. No one aspires to be the bland average, so don’t water down messaging to appeal to everyone—it will end up appealing to no one.

The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months

Test assumptions and find hidden costs by interviewing those who have done it: Will you need to pay for co-op advertising, offer rebates for bulk purchases, or pay for shelf space or featured placement? I know one former CEO of a national brand who had to sell his company to one of the world’s largest soft drink manufacturers before he could access front-of-store shelving in top retailers. Test your assumptions and do your homework before setting pricing.

The Margin Manifesto: 11 Tenets for Reaching (or Doubling) Profitability in 3 Months

Make Others Negotiate Against Themselves Never make a first offer when purchasing. Flinch after the first offer (“$3,000!”followedbypuresilence,whichuncomfortablesalespeoplefillbydroppingthepriceonce),letpeoplenegotiateagainstthemselves(“Isthatreallythebestyoucanoffer?”elicitsatleastoneadditionaldropinprice),then“bracket.”Iftheyendupat$2,000 and you want to pay $1,500,offer$1,250. They’ll counter with approximately $1,750,towhichyourespond:“I’lltellyouwhat—let’sjustsplitthedifference.I’llovernightFedExyouacheck,andwecancallitaday.”Theendresult?Exactlywhatyouwanted:$1,500.

Star Wars, Anyone?

I eliminated all work that has gotten me down or was wearing me out (eliminated an extra workload of about 10 hours/week). I do not take on jobs (writing/producing music) unless I really love the project. I eliminated all complainers and haters (saves my stomach).

Restricted Reading: The Few that Matter

One of the secrets behind Harvard Business School’s teaching success is the case method—using real-life case studies for discussion. These cases take you inside the marketing and operational plans of 24-Hour Fitness, Southwest Airlines, Timberland, and hundreds of other companies. Few people realize that you can purchase these case studies for less than $10apieceinsteadofspendingmorethan$100,000 to go to Harvard (not that the latter isn’t worth it). There is a case study for every situation, problem, and business model.

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

TO DO OR not to do? To try or not to try? Most people will vote no, whether they consider themselves brave or not. Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows. Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

one day, in my bliss of envisioning how bad my future suffering would be, I hit upon a gem of an idea. It was surely a highlight of my “don’t happy, be worry” phase: Why don’t I decide exactly what my nightmare would be—the worst thing that could possibly happen as a result of my trip? Well, my business could fail while I’m overseas, for sure. Probably would. A legal warning letter would accidentally not get forwarded and I would get sued. My business would be shut down, and inventory would spoil on the shelves while I’m picking my toes in solitary misery on some cold shore in Ireland. Crying in the rain, I imagine. My bank account would crater by 80% and certainly my car and motorcycle in storage would be stolen. I suppose someone would probably spit on my head from a high-rise balcony while I’m feeding food scraps to a stray dog, which would then spook and bite me squarely on the face. God, life is a cruel, hard bitch.

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

THEN A FUNNY thing happened. In my undying quest to make myself miserable, I accidentally began to backpedal. As soon as I cut through the vague unease and ambiguous anxiety by defining my nightmare, the worst-case scenario, I wasn’t as worried about taking a trip. Suddenly, I started thinking of simple steps I could take to salvage my remaining resources and get back on track if all hell struck at once. I could always take a temporary bartending job to pay the rent if I had to. I could sell some furniture and cut back on eating out. I could steal lunch money from the kindergarteners who passed by my apartment every morning. The options were many. I realized it wouldn’t be that hard to get back to where I was, let alone survive. None of these things would be fatal—not even close. Mere panty pinches on the journey of life. I realized that on a scale of 1–10, 1 being nothing and 10 being permanently life-changing, my so-called worst-case scenario might have a temporary impact of 3 or 4. I believe this is true of most people and most would-be “holy sh*t, my life is over” disasters. Keep in mind that this is the one-in-a-million disaster nightmare. On the other hand, if I realized my best-case scenario, or even a probablecase scenario, it would easily have a permanent 9 or 10 positive life-changing effect. In other words, I was risking an unlikely and temporary 3 or 4 for a probable and permanent 9 or 10, and I could easily recover my baseline workaholic prison with a bit of extra work if I wanted to. 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. That is when I made the decision to take the trip and bought a one-way ticket to Europe

3. Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

Are you better off than you were one year ago, one month ago, or one week ago? If not, things will not improve by themselves. If you are kidding yourself, it is time to stop and plan for a jump

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

MOST PEOPLE WILL never know what they want. I don’t know what I want. If you ask me what I want to do in the next five months for language learning, on the other hand, I do know. It’s a matter of specificity. “What do you want?” is too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer. Forget about it.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

“What are your goals?” is similarly fated for confusion and guesswork. To rephrase the question, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. 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. Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and has become ambiguous through overuse. There is a more precise alternative that reflects what I believe the actual objective is.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

while the majority of undergraduates fill their time by updating their Facebook profiles or watching videos on YouTube, Marrinan was discussing Soto Zen Buddhism via e-mail with Randy Komisar, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, and asking Google CEO Eric Schmidt via e-mail when he had been happiest in his life. (Schmidt’s answer: “Tomorrow.”) Prior to his e-mail, Marrinan had never contacted Komisar. He had met Schmidt, a Princeton University trustee, only briefly at an academic affairs meeting of the trustees in November. A self-described “naturally shy kid,” Marrinan said he would never have dared to randomly e-mail two of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley if it weren’t for Tim Ferriss, who offered a guest lecture in Professor Ed Zschau’s “High-Tech Entrepreneurship” class. Ferriss challenged Marrinan and his fellow seniors to contact high-profile celebrities and CEOs and get their answers to questions they have always wanted to ask.

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

when you see classmates getting responses from people like [former president] George Bush, the CEOs of Disney, Comcast, Google, and HP, and dozens of other impossible-to-reach people, it forces you to reconsider your self-set limitations.”

4. System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

Marrinan was able to strike up a bond with Komisar. In his initial e-mail, he talked about reading one of Komisar’s Harvard Business Review articles and feeling inspired to ask him, “When were you happiest in your life?” After Komisar replied with references to Tibetan Buddhism, Marrinan responded, “Just as words are inadequate to explain true happiness, so too are words inadequate to express my thanks.” His e-mail included his personal translation of a French poem by Taisen Deshimaru, the former European head of Soto Zen. An e-mail relationship was formed, and Komisar even e-mailed Marrinan a few days later with a link to a New York Times article on happiness.