5 Secrets to Living the 4-hour Work Week
Ever since Tim Ferriss popularized the concept of the 4 hour work week and illustrated his success with his life, every life and business coach has chimed in with an opinion on how to get the same results.
Why not pay attention to the people who actually pay attention to Ferriss?
Here are 5 secrets to living the 4 hour work week straight from the ideas of the creator himself, consolidated into this easy to read, digestible summary!
1. Automation
The primary secret to the 4 hour work week is automation.
You can incorporate automation in the production process, the marketing funnel and even in analysis. With the tools for automating business processes always expanding and improving, you really have no excuse for working long hours!
Of course you can produce and sell your own products, but if you are having trouble with the creation part, affiliate marketing is your friend.
Your first hire as a business owner should be yourself as a growth hacker. Go ahead; do it, paperwork and all! You are now your own growth hacker. The primary focus of a growth hacker is to find tools to automate your business.
The first system that you can employ is the one right in front of you, at Digital Altitude. As an affiliate of the Digital Altitude program, your have your own fully automated business processes from start to finish.
If you need help with your first business, we also you up with an advantageous commission structure, training videos, team building exercises, coaching and assistance with your sales funnel, among many other features.
Keep in mind there are higher levels to invest in as you move forward in your business career!
2. The Product
Product development can take up inordinate amounts of time, especially if this is not your strength.
Before you begin to think that you have to create what you sell, keep in mind that Bill Gates bought the DOS platform to start Microsoft – he didn’t create one line of it.
The majority of top businessmen are not creatives – they are licensors.
PRODUCT LICENSING IS A WAY TO AUTOMATE YOUR PRODUCTION SCHEDULE.
Licensing products takes a great deal of pressure off of your shoulders, because you are leaving the nuances of learning the market to the development team with experience in that area. It can take years to learn a new market.
Why do that when you can simply help someone who has already learned it? They have the passion to drill down, and they do not necessarily need your help to do that digging. However, most developers usually need a hand up out of the hole that they create for themselves in learning their audience!
3. The Mentorship
Although you should not become caught up in knowledge seeking from guru after guru, you should actively seek out the advice and company of people who have done what you want to do.
How can you expect to call people to sell to them if you cannot even call people to get a bit of a conversation going?
The statistic that everyone knows, “You are the average of your 5 best friends,” is one of the most scientific unscientific metrics ever spoken into existence. However, getting better friends than you already have can be difficult.
THE SECRET IS TO BUILD FRIENDSHIPS SLOWLY.
This article is one of the best I have seen on making friends with people who are busier than you. Read it, but here’s the summary: Treat famous people like you would treat anyone else. Here’s my personal addition: Meet more famous people than you know what to do with.
Just like the dating scene, not everyone you encounter is going to like you. You need to move among so many busy people that you gain mentors by virtue of numbers rather than making some incredible impression on a single target.
4. The Lifestyle
If you are going to live the 4 hour work week, you cannot start living it only after you get a certain amount of money. Take into account that you may have to sacrifice some of your comforts in order to truly adhere to the tenants of what Tim uses to live his life.
The first thing that you need to understand is the lie of the 4 hour work week.
The secret of working a 4 hour work week is simple: You will be working full days if you are trying to start a business.
You just can’t call that work work. This simple semantic is how Tim himself could work all day and night promoting his original 4 hour work week book while saying that he wasn’t working at all.
If you want to start a business, it is going to take some [read: a lot of] sweat equity. The lifestyle of the free entrepreneur is one that is rather self-aggrandizing. It requires a great deal of delusion.
On some level, you have to convince yourself that you actually care enough about others than you do yourself. When you walk up to them to break into their social circles and access their exclusive resources, you need to believe in your heart that you can possibly add value to the situation!
This is the lifestyle of the entrepreneur.
Better friends don’t happen automatically. More money doesn’t just fly out of the sky. If you do not open your mouth to sell your product, it will not sell.
The good news is that there are more computer automation programs and systems in place to do this for you than ever before. The marketing strategy that Tim had to initiate on foot, talking to bloggers individually at conventions like SXSW, can now be implemented from your smart phone.
Digital Altitude has the techniques that you need to live out this strategy.
5. Time Management
Automation is your friend when it comes to time management, especially if you do not have the clout to get people to work for you for free.
Your main concern should be in creating a system that handles the brainless parts of your marketing and promotion. This will free your time to accomplish the more fun and exciting legwork that still needs to be done.
For instance, you cannot possibly send yourself out on mentor-finding missions if you are always behind on your emails every day.
First of all, you should always look to eliminate processes from your day that do not work, both automated and live action.
Use Pareto’s Rule on the processes that you initiate on a daily basis: You will get 80% of your productivity from 20% of your processes. Find that 20%, duplicate those processes, and eliminate the other 80%. This will free up so much of your day that you will surprise yourself at how much time you have to get your real work done.
Once you have freed up your day to start making new connections and using a non-location specific lifestyle to be where the action is, you need to learn how to manage your time in those environments.
If you want to build up to better friends, you will have to learn how to manage your time to get around people with a higher value than you. Tim might say this in a slightly more politically correct way, but this is basically what you are doing!
One of the best uses of your time is to befriend the filters of the decision makers. Contrary to how many people interpret the advice above, time management in social circles does not mean putting up a Hollywood front and ignoring “the little people.”
The little people are the ones who have the ability to get you to Mr. Big, and in most cases, their introduction to Mr. Big could be more effective than you introducing yourself.
Give these decision makers the ability to screen you, and make them feel important. The more that you allow them to do their job, the easier path you will have to the top. On top of this, you will make friends with the people who are also on the way up, giving you a network of associates along with mentors.
If you are not great at meeting people, cheer up. Digital Altitude has a built in network of smart, capable and successful friends and mentors for you to cut your teeth.
These are people who understand your struggle because they have been through it. They will be the first to help you and point your feet in the right direction when it is time to leave the nest.
Putting It All Together
THE WAY TO FREEDOM AND PROFIT IS TO BUILD SYSTEMS THAT WORK FOR YOU INSTEAD OF WORKING FOR A SYSTEM.
When you have the right system-building system behind you, building your own systems becomes quite easy. Automation is your ticket to more profit in less time, leading to the 4 hour work week that you are looking for.
Remember that you must incorporate all of these strategies concurrently. You may have trouble keeping all of your balls in the air at the same time, but you will find the balance.
Everyone has to, because this is the only way that entrepreneurs survive in the first place! The biggest test that you will face as a new entrepreneur is giving yourself the time to learn this balance. There is no telling when everything will click, and you have to be patient enough to let it happen.
Follow the tips above to accelerate your move into the world of free living entrepreneurs. It is your time right now, so stop seeking permission and move into the life that you were born to create for yourself. Use the resources that Digital Altitude offers you, and expand yourself bravely every day without fear of failure. See you at the top!