Why The 4-Hour Workweek Ruined A Generation

The 4-Hour Workweek, one of the most influential business books of all time, but it low-key ruined a generation. It's not because the book is bad. It's pretty good, actually. It's brilliant. It's because an entire generation, a generation I'm a part of, totally misunderstood this whole book. People read the 4-hour part and thought hard work is for suckers. There must be some sort of hack to this success thing. But the funny thing is, is that Tim Ferriss himself has admitted several times on his own podcast that he works very hard and And that the whole point of the book was not to avoid working hard, but to 10x your output. So how do we make sense of this book? How do we get the most out of it? Let's figure it out inside. I want to get something straight. I'm not here to trash Tim Ferriss today. All right. Tim Ferriss is an absolutely brilliant author, entrepreneur. He is an absolute GOAT. I read this book back in 2007 when it came out. 2007, guys. You know, in a lot of ways, he legitimized Online entrepreneurship beforehand, online business was almost seen as scammy, almost risky for people to take on. But I vividly remember reading this book in probably in two days. I zoomed through it. It blew my mind wide open. But having said all that, many people read this book. People that I've met personally totally misunderstood it. So much so, like I mentioned, Tim mentions. In his own podcast several times that a lot of people think that this book is about not working hard, but it's actually the opposite. Tim works incredible hours and works very hard on his business and all the wonderful books he writes. But I'm here to tell you why it doesn't work, why this mentality doesn't work. This idea of, well, if it's hard, a lot of people believe that if my business is hard, then I must have not found the hack. There's something that must be easier around the corner that I just haven't discovered yet. So to reiterate, the problem is not Tim Ferriss's book, okay? It's the interpretation. It's the culture around this book that has manifested that says work is supposed to be easy, not hard. It's actually opposite. Anything that's worth anything is hard. And that's what differentiates you from the other people. You're willing to do what's hard to get what you want. And when I say a generation, I'm not like poo-pooing young people. A lot of brilliant, hardworking young people out there. But it's a mentality. It's this idea that there must be a shortcut, there must be a hack, there must be a way to do this. And you know what I'm talking about? There's so many of these things that pop up constantly in the world of business, and it just remanifests itself in different forms. It used to be dropshipping, then it became passive income, then it was automation, then crypto came around, then it was NFTs, and now it's AI. It's all the same fantasy. It's this belief that somewhere there is this button that I can press that gives me maximum results with minimum effort. And I literally have heard people say that hard work is for suckers. OK? That hard work is for those who don't know how to work smarter. Well, there is such a thing as working smarter, but people that work smarter still work hard so that they have an advantage. Right? The advantage is the smart part, but they're still working hard so that they can outbeat their competition. And to Tim's credit, this is where he focused in the book, how to outsource people's talents, how to leverage other people's time, how to make sure that you are getting the most out of your money too. Like he talked about, you know, you can live in a different country and, you know, pay $5 for a meal rather than $50 and so on and so forth. And obviously this is 2007 when the book was written, so economics are different. But the point here that he was trying to make is that, listen, you can give yourself a head start in business and life. If you work a little smarter while working harder. Now, here's the kicker. Yes, the book is called The 4-Hour Workweek, but it doesn't mean you have to work 4 hours. It just means you can work 4 hours if you wanted to as a bare minimum. Now, you might be asking, Omar, so what happens if I work hard? What if it never pans out? What if I don't make it if I work hard? That's why I look for shortcuts. That's why I look for the hack. That's why I look for an easier way to get around and get to success faster. Okay? Let me show you what happens when you try to hack your way through success. Let's go to the whiteboard and figure this one out. So I call this the hard work compound curve. All right? On the y-axis, we have success, whatever you define success to be, money, accomplishment, impact, whatever that might be. And then on the x-axis here, we have time. And I have like just some random, not random, but Chronological age, like 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, as you go through life, alright? We're gonna give an example of the hacker, what I call the hack hunter. So, the hack hunter, alright? So, what does this person's trajectory look like throughout their life? So, they find a hack, let's call it dropshipping, right? And it works for a bit, but then it doesn't. So they go back down. And then, for example, they find another hack and they go up a little bit, then they go back down. And then they find another hack, but that is short-lived. They go back down and another hack and another hack and another hack and another hack. All these hacks have a shelf life. And the problem with these hacks is that they don't actually build any skills that compound, that allow them to build upon these skills and be able to leverage those skills into building something of value, an asset, a business. Okay? And then this just keeps going on their whole life. And a lot of times what happens is they just give up because they They're sick of failing and not being— and having to start over and over and over every single time and they just kind of fizzle out and they just forget about this dream called business, okay? But let's look at another example. Where's my other marker? Here it is. Look at the hard worker instead. Let's get the cap off this blue one. Hard worker, okay? Now, hard worker, yes, they're working smarter but they're also working harder, okay? Okay? This person, they're not getting a lot of success in the beginning. They're still figuring things out. They're still a beginner. They're not kind of getting it yet. You know, they might screw up, but then they learn a little bit from that screw-up, and they just have this like slow, steady growth. They're getting to their 50s and their 40s. Wow, I'm making a bit of money now. People recognize me. My reputation is starting to grow. People understand. And as you start to go, their skills start to compound, and they're able to leverage those skills To have more and more success throughout their life. Okay? As you could see, maybe the hacker had a bit of success in the beginning, but then they dropped down again, they dropped down again, and eventually what happens somewhere around 40, 45, which is around my age, I'm 46, you start to outpace, you start to beat the hacker. You start to realize— you leave them in the dust really. You're so far ahead because you're able to learn from your failures, build upon those skills, Take those skills, monetize them, build a business, build assets, sell those businesses, make some money, and reach whatever success you're looking for. That's the hard work compound curve. So as you saw on the whiteboard, those who spent their 20s and 30s hunting for hacks, they didn't just waste time. They wasted the most powerful years of their entire life. Okay? In your 20s, in your 30s, you're at full force. Okay, you have full energy. You have your physical energy, your mental energy. You could stay up all night. I mean, you could stay up all night and party, right? And get up the next day with minimal sleep. You could do the same thing with hard work. Okay, you have a lot of time. You have a lot more free time. Why? Because you have less responsibilities. As you get older in your 30s, 40s, 50s, you're going to have more responsibilities, whether it's kids, whether it's aging parents, whether you're getting older and you need to deal with your own health ailments. Okay, so you have less things to worry about in your younger years. And this is why I really believe that it's criminal, in my opinion, to waste your 20s and 30s messing around and not investing in your skills and working hard as much as possible. Now, I'm not saying you have to have no life, but you have to recognize the fact that this is a valuable time that you will never get back. If you're in your 20s and 30s right now, this is the exact time to work as hard as humanly possible. When I was in my 20s, I was from 20 to 32, I was an educator. I was a schoolteacher and then I was a principal. I was a chair of department at the university I worked at. I was working crazy hours, not only because I wanted to get promoted and do well at my job, but I recognized the fact that I need to learn as fast as possible so that I can get better and better because I don't know how much time I will have with this kind of energy, with this, you know, least amount of responsibilities possible. You know, no matter how much responsibility you have in your 20s or 30s, it's gonna get more and more complicated. As you get older. Then when I left teaching at 32 and went full-time in entrepreneurship, literally working 15, 16 hours a day. Now listen, I'm not promoting this idea of like just completely working till you can't live anymore or your eyeballs bleed. Work as hard as humanly healthy possible. Okay? If that means it makes any sense. But the point here is, is that I really prioritized my time to learn and grow at that At that point in time in my life, because I knew it's a limited amount of time. I can always have fun, have vacations, have nice cars, have a nice home, have all that kind of stuff later in life. Right? I don't need to have a lot of energy to enjoy those things. All right? But in my 30s, I really focused on building my skills as an entrepreneur, building my businesses, failing a ton and learning through the process, building my network, building my reputation. Understanding that, hey, whatever I do now, I'll get to reap the benefits of that. You know those seeds I was planting. You know I'll be able to harvest what I was able to grow in my 40s and beyond. And that's exactly what happened. So please stop, stop wasting this precious time when you have this full power and full capacity. You will never get it back. That's a fact. Hey, if this episode's hitting a nerve, thank you. I hope so. That's what I want. I want you to also subscribe to the show because we have an upcoming episode. I don't want you to miss. It's called AI is Killing Agencies, and this is a really close to the grain episode because a lot of my close friends have reached out to me personally on phone calls, on Zoom calls, through text message, saying, "Hey, my business is hitting rock bottom, right? I'm about to go out of business because of AI," and they run agencies, whether it's marketing agencies, design agencies, you name it. So I'm going to talk about this problem and how agencies can reinvent themselves. to bounce back and be better than ever. So hit subscribe so you don't miss it. Now, I gotta talk about the elephant in the room. The irony of this whole episode, okay, is that I worked a ton in the last 20 years to get to this point in my career as an entrepreneur. Now that I run my media company, The 100 MBA, and I sold my software company, Webinar Ninja, where I was literally working 12, 15, 16-hour days to build the best software company, 'cause it's crazy competitive in software, and I had no time to rest. Uh, because I was trying to build as valuable as a company as possible so I can sell this company, which happened, and be able to not worry about money ever again, which luckily we were able to do. So the reason why I'm saying the irony is because now I have a business and a life that gives me a ton of flexibility. Okay? If I'm being completely honest, I don't really need to work more than 4 hours a day. Um, you know, most of the work I have to do is show up in front of the camera and deliver these episodes. You know, we're building this team around us. Mm-hmm. To help me just do what I need to do, what I like to do, my secret sauce, which is teach. And that's really what I like to focus on. I travel a ton. Nicole and I love to travel to different parts of the world, but also I like to travel for work and speak on stages. So I have a lot of flexibility, but that didn't happen by accident. That happened because I invested in myself and I was able to build a business that has the kind of margins that it has now. Where I can hire some help. I can hire a team where I can expand different roles and take things off my plate. That doesn't happen because I got lucky or I found a hack. That happened because I worked hard. I built an asset. I was able to sell that asset, make a ton of money that I can then reinvest and build another business with and do things a little bit more comfortably. So my mission in life is not to work hard forever. My mission in life was to be able to Build enough assets, enough success in my background so that when I build something in the future, I can have a little bit of an easier life. I did this on purpose because I know that in my 40s and in my 50s and in my 60s, I will not have the same energy as I had when I was younger. And that's the truth. The truth is, is that like, you know, when we get approached by partners or by affiliates or whatever it might be, I just don't have the energy to do what they're asking me to do if it's not— if the numbers are not right, if the money's not right. So I built a system so that I can protect my time and energy. And I can understand that, hey, I have a higher value now because my time is very expensive. It was a little bit cheaper when I was younger because I had nothing but time and no money. But now it's sort of the opposite. So now I can have a little bit more choice and a little bit more autonomy. The crazy thing is, is that even though I don't have to work more than 4 hours a day, I tend to enjoy work beyond that. You know, we've had some long days this week because I Love what we do. I love building a team. I love being able to train new people that come in. I love being able to present and do workshops and all that kind of stuff. It's fun to me. And if I can continue to have fun, I don't mind doing it. But if there's things I don't like to do or things that I don't enjoy or I don't feel like I'm making an impact with, that's something I need to outsource. That's something that somebody else can do, or I just cut out altogether. Not worth doing. Okay. And you need to build to get to that position. And in order to do that, It's gonna take a bit of hard work and a bit of sacrifice. I know it's easy for me to say looking back, but I remember very clearly what life was like when I was grinding it out. So what should you take away from this book, The 4-Hour Workweek? Well, it's certainly not to avoid hard work. It's actually the exact opposite. Okay? Stop avoiding hard work because hard work is your single biggest differentiator. Here's why most people won't do it. A lot of people ask me, Omar, how you have all the success with this podcast? You know, you have you know millions of downloads every month and da da da da da. And my answer to them surprises them. I say, hey, I've been doing this for twelve years. If I wasn't successful, there'd been something seriously wrong with me. Okay. So sometimes you just have to keep going, work hard, and out hustle. I know the word hustle is very tainted, but out hustle your competition. And that's really a big differentiator. Most people won't do that. Most people will give up. Most people don't have the longevity. Most people don't enjoy what they do enough for them to keep going. So most people are looking for the hack. Most people are looking for a shortcut. They're looking for an easy way. And my true belief is people that do that, they don't really love business. They don't really love entrepreneurship because at the end of the day, I just love the game. Of business. I just love the challenge. I just love learning from failure and bouncing back and experimenting and figuring things out. And then, hey, that worked. Let's try more of that. That whole thing has nothing to do with dollars, has nothing to do with success or accolades. It has a lot to do with the journey of business, of the actual enjoyment. It's like playing a video game. And I actually want to do an episode on this, like treat your business like a video game. But if you play a video game, uh, and you beat the game, you go through all the levels, right? What do you do if you really love the game? You play it again because you just love the journey. Okay? Even if you know the story and you know the arc and you know everything's gonna happen, you still enjoy the actual game. And that's the same thing with real true entrepreneurs. They're people that just love the game. So even when they build a business and sell it, they wanna start a new business because they just love the journey. And you have to start falling in love with that. Falling in love with the hard work and see yourself as somebody that, hey, no matter what happens, at least I'm in the arena. At least I'm doing this thing, right? I'm one of those people that gets to be an entrepreneur. So again, your willingness to go through what others won't and refuse to go through is your competitive advantage. And the book's real lesson is never escape work, but to understand what you're capable Of with limited resources. He was really a maximizer of resources. And that's what Tim Ferriss is really focusing on. It's like, hey, even if you have limited resources, a little money, a little bit of time, you could still do a lot. And I love that message. And I want to be clear about when I say hard work. OK? I want you to cut out the busywork. Cut out the things that don't actually move the needle, that actually don't make you money. OK? Go hard on the things that actually compound, that actually matter. Like relationships, like building team, like improving your product, like improving your customer support, like understanding your customer, like maximizing your profit and your finances of the business. Remember the numbers? You know, this is what business is all about. This is the stuff you really should be working hard on. And hard work isn't for suckers. It's actually the opposite. People that are avoiding hard work, they're the ones, as you saw on the whiteboard, they're the ones that are the suckers. They're the ones that actually lose at the end. They're looking for something that doesn't exist. OK? And if you want something bad enough, it's worth working hard for it. Hey, if this episode landed, I highly recommend you pick up The 4-Hour Workweek if you haven't read it before. It's a really good book. It's actually really a fun read, and it reads like an adventure novel, almost like a Bond movie. And Tim does a great job. It's his first book that he wrote, and you should check out his other books as well that are very useful. It's definitely inspiring, and it kind of opens your eyes to a lot of different things. But remember, This dude works harder than most people. OK? You don't write a bestselling book over and over again. He's got like 4 New York Times bestsellers by accident. It takes a bit of hustle. It takes a bit of work. It takes a bit of long nights to make it happen. OK? But if you want to continue learning here on the podcast, I highly recommend you check out a recent episode we had called How to Run Your Business in 4 Hours a Day. Maybe you don't want to go 4 hours a week, but 4 hours a day is definitely doable if you focus on the right things. Go ahead and check out that episode. Just scroll back on whatever app you're using right now. You know what you got to do. You saw the difference between someone who looks for the hack and the person that is compounding their skills and just works hard and stays consistent. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you in the next one.