Revisiting Lifestyle Design, Great Reading on a Rainy Sunday

I’ve been a fan of Tim Ferris’s Four Hour Work Week book, reading it back in 2007 and partially reflecting on it in the blog Life on the Road post…but today was a rainy Sunday afternoon in Shenzhen and spent a lot of my afternoon reading through the it, chillin on the couch at Andy + Rica‘s place.

Again, part of my continuous transition of life and career, I think spending today reflecting and reading helped a lot. Below I was typing notes on my tablet as I was reading, thought I would share the “cliff notes” from the book. But still recommend spending time to read it over.

conquering fear = defining fear – What are we afraid of, what do we have to lose? How hard is it really to get back to where you left off, get job back, get your income back? Think about the risks and rewards of keeping what we have and not being happy versus taking a risk and trying something new, with the worst case returning back where you started.

fear is optimistic denial, thinking life will get better – So many times we don’t want to try something new because we think the life we are living now can get better if we just keep putting up with it. But Tim calls this optimistic denial. We have to take charge of our lives and our destiny.

do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. He mentioned how when he spoke at Princeton University, he challenged the students to contact 3 famous people and ask them questions, the first one to do so would get a trip paid for around the world. NO one did it, or event attempted (he says if someone had at least told them they tried, they would have one) Tim’s point is that people feel that others are better then them, smarter than them, faster than them….so why bother trying? Don’t think this way!!!!!

dont chase happiness, chase excitement, passion, bliss, so ask what would excite yourself? Its not happiness we are looking for, he says happiness can be a bottle of wine and chocolate once a week. It should be passion and excitement we are looking for.

“life is too short to be small” benjamin disraeli

dreamlining, tmi, total monthly income

elimination time management isnt right, dont try to jam every minute of your day with things to do.

1. Doing something unimportant well does not make it important
2. requiring a lot of time does not make the task important.

what you do is important, not how you do it.

the end of time management, ask yourself these questions each day

1. am i being productive or just active?
2. am i inventing things to do to avoid the important?
3. if i only get this one task done today, will i be satisfied with my day?

low information diet

learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace. – Robert Sawyer

“nobody can give you freedom. nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. if you’re a man, you take it” – Malcolm x

eliminate before you degate

mba, manage by absense where the owner founder purposely isnt always there in order to have staff ….. process oriented vs founder oriented business

removing yourself from the equation, outsourcing yourself.

“orders are nobody can see the great oz! not nobody, not nohow!” guardian of the emerald city gates, the wizard of oz

dont be the driver if the train, be the police officer on the side of the road that can pull people over if need be.

fewer options = more revenue, “the customer can have any color he wants, so long as its black” – henry ford

Just an amazing book, I think this was a life changer for me when I read it back in San Diego, California back in summer 2007….and strongly recommend reading it to anyone who wants to change the way they think and work!