My 4 hour life on a brief hiatus…

Posted on January 17, 2008
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For a week or so as I relocate to the west coast.  Back before you know it!

Paring down–clothes

Posted on November 24, 2007
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I started paring down my clothes tonight–this was the easy part as I was essentially cutting all of the “fat” out of my wardrobe. Anything that was damaged, worn out or otherwise unsalvagable went in the trash. Everything that I hadn’t worn in at least a year, stuff that didn’t fit, and stuff I just didn’t like any more went into bags to take to the thrift store. A few things were set aside to possibly sell on Ebay later–assuming that I determine that the pain in the ass of dealing with it is worth the paltry sum I’ll make. Otherwise they’ll go to the thrift store as well….I also saved a well worn pair of flannel PJ pants which I’ll rip up and use to clean my laptop screen.

Sum total was about eight bags of clothing–two in the trash and six for the thrift store. And this was without any thought whatsoever–it was all stuff that for one reason or another I knew I’d never wear again. I’m still nowhere near my goal of getting one of my two closets completely emptied out but at least I made a dent in it tonight.

Too much stuff–the road to a minimalist life

Posted on November 22, 2007
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Today we’ll take a bit of a detour away from 4HWW and talk about stuff. Actually, the concept of “simple abundance” is at the heart of Ferriss’ book though he doesn’t go into much detail about “decluttering” your worldly possessions. Near the beginning of the book when he enumerates the “Rules that change the rules”–the concepts that lie at the heart of the entire book–one is a clear endorsement of a less cluttered life. Ferriss suggests that “Things in Excess Become Their Opposite”:

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.

Later in the book he discusses an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto, who came up with another concept that is essential to a well designed life. It is something that you’ve likely heard of in one form or another: the 80/20 rule. Simply stated, 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. You’ve probably heard it in the context of sales where its often suggested that 20% of the clients result in 80% of the sales, or 20% of the clients result in 80% of the problems.

The exact numerical breakdown isn’t important but the idea behind what Ferriss’ refers to as “Pareto’s Rule” is. You can also expand the rule beyond input/outputs into the physical realm. My fashion diva friend Amanda, who writes the excellent blog “Art of the Steal” (recently named #8 of the top 100 fashion blogs online) suggests that people only really wear 20% of their wardrobe. That’s certainly true with me, though in my case the numbers may be even more skewed. For a long time I had a strange habit–even though I’m self employed and rarely have to wear business attire like dress shirts and ties I love to buy them. Certain dress shirts can at least be re purposed for casual wear or to wear out on the town or whatever. Ties are a different matter–at one point last year I had over 150 ties. That would be excessive for someone who wore ties every day, but since I only wear them less than a dozen times a year its completely absurd. Even before undertaking this lifestyle re-design I did pare my ties in half and will soon cut them down even more. Ditto with my dress shirts–I’ve already gone through my closet and sold on Ebay anything with “resale value” that I didn’t wear.

Even with this effort to pare down my clothes I still have two closets, a free standing wardrobe and two chests of drawers full of clothes. This is way too many even though I like clothes and make an effort to dress well. I guess some of my thinking was the realization that depending on what I’m doing in life my clothing needs may change–for example, I may go through a month or so where I need more dress shirts. Even so, its pretty obvious that I have way too many clothes. Again, I likely get 80% or more of my wear out of 20% or less of my clothing.

Some people have other weaknesses–books, CDs, DVDs or whatever. I’m an avid reader and at points in my life I’ve had shelf after shelf filled with books. After a while, however, you realize that few of these get re-read. Some will be loaned to others to read, but most of the time they serve as tangible evidence to the literacy of the owner. When I was single I thought that it would impress chicks as to how smart I am. It served, in essence, as a MySpace page where someone could come into my house and get a visible inventory of my interests and a tangible measure of my level of intelligence and intellectual achievement. Of course unlike a MySpace page a huge collection of books is a real pain in the ass to store, let alone move.

So as a component of my progress toward a “4 Hour Life” I’m going to significantly pare down my possessions. Here’s my “source material” for this–a Zen Habits post called “Minimalist Fun: The 100 Things Challenge“. This post references a challenge posed on another blog called “StuckInStuff” called “The 100 Thing Challenge“. As the Zen Habits post notes the 100 item number is arbitrary, but I’m at least going to strive for it. Since part of my “lifestyle re-design” will involve relocation to a city that’s a better fit for my lifestyle and interests I’ll definitely shoot for it in the short term as it’ll make moving that much easier. We’ll discuss the relocation at great length in the future but for now let’s concentrate on the decluttering process.

The 100 Things Challenge does come with a few stipulations as to what is and what is not to be counted among your “100 things”. These are as follows:

Things not included:

* Stuff that’s shared between him and other family members.
* Non-personal stuff, like dishes, cleaning supplies, etc.
* Books.
* Tools.
* Collections count as one item.

Like the “low information diet” we talked about in a previous post, I’m going to modify these rules somewhat to fit my specific circumstances without changing their intent or making it significantly easier for me. I live alone so the “things shared by other family members” doesn’t apply to me. I was going to include my dogs’ stuff here, but I’ll buy them new beds, bowls and other similar supplies after I move. So I guess this will include their leashes, crates, etc. that they’ll need during the moving process. Same thing with “non-personal stuff”–I’ll be buying new dishes, cleaning supplies, etc. once I move. I may pack up and ship a few things that would fall under this category–my Global chef’s knife, for example. I’ve also got a bunch of art–paintings primarily–along with framed pictures that will get packed up and shipped. I’m not going to count these among my 100 items either.

We talked about books before–I’m going to be getting rid of most of them. I won’t be counting the few I keep. Tools we’ll talk about in a moment and I don’t really have any “collections” so that’s not an issue. Actually, I was planning on packing and shipping my cigars–primarily to avoid the tobacco taxes which whereever I end up will be higher than South Carolina. I guess this will count as a “collection”.

I’m also not going to count my computers and various tech devices necessary for doing my job. Since these are my “tools” this seems to fall under the intent of the challenge.

I seriously doubt if I can get my personal stuff down to 100 items, but the point of the endeavor for me is to pare down significantly so even if I don’t hit the arbitrary number I’ll be happy with my progress. I’ve already decided to give away all of my wine and spirits–I’ve got a bunch of wine but none of it is what you’d call “collectible”. With Christmas coming up I’ve got several racks of ready made gifts. I threw away a bunch of random crap from my house–unused office supplies, old magazines, unused furniture, etc. last weekend.

So that’s my general decluttering plan–I’ll track my progress here. I may do some “decluttering” this week but will probably get serious about it the following week and thereafter.

Another great source for decluttering and organization advice is a blog called Unclutterer.

Staying positive around negative people

Posted on November 22, 2007
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The excellent Zen Habits blog has a big post today about staying positive in the face of negative opposition. Basically, its a “how to” about eliminating the doubts that sabotage your dreams and goals:

Why? Because a doubt, as innocuous as it may seem at first, has a way of creeping its way into your subconscious, into the depths of your heart, like some kind of black and evil creature that has infiltrated your body. The doubt lingers at the back of your head, without you being aware of it, and will eventually conquer your dreams if you let it.

And when this happens, the doubt is more powerful than you realize. When you are making the tough decisions, like whether to apply for college or to go off to Hong Kong and pursue your dreams, your dreams will lose out, because of that doubt in the back of your head. When you think about yourself, your self-image will not be of that person you want to be, but the person that others want you to be.

Doubts will keep you in a job you hate, just because you’re afraid to go do what you really want to do. Doubts will keep you with a person who abuses you, because you don’t think you deserve better.


How to Doggedly Pursue Your Dreams in the Face of Naysayers @ Zen Habits

The low information diet….

Posted on November 21, 2007
Filed Under 4 Hour Work Week, elimination, lifestyle design | 1 Comment

I started the “process of elimination” by going on what Ferriss calls “The Low Information Diet”. I started this “diet” a couple of days after finishing the book and I’m still on it.

Ever since I was a teenager I’ve been an information junkie. Prior to my “diet” I’d read at least 4 newspapers a day: The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, The New York Times and USA TODAY. In the car I’d have Bloomberg or CNBC radio playing on my satellite radio and at home I’d have them on the TV. At home it was usually worse than that–I’d have one network on the main screen, the other network in the picture in picture with the volume down and listening to the audio of one while watching the other.

I knew that not only would tripe like “Judge Joe Brown” and “Maury” rot my brain, but so would what passes for news on the various cable networks. I could only handle so much OJ, Brittney Spears and other “news stories” concerning celebrities I cared nothing about, interspersed with rednecks being pulled out of sinkholes or multi-car pileups after a semi jackknifes on a wet road in flyover country. My thinking was that if it was a big enough news story to effect the financial markets it was a big enough story that I should know about it.

In addition to TV, newspapers and radios I read at least 30 different magazines a month. I tried to do it in an “efficient” manner by quickly paging through them and tearing out articles of sufficient interest to read later. I downloaded books from Audible, as well as the daily Public Radio International show “Marketplace”. And of course I tried to keep up with a couple hundred RSS feeds, websites and discussion lists–all while checking a rotation of financial news sites on an almost hourly basis.

Not only did I have all of this information to process, I tried to file magazine articles and newspaper stories away for future reference. I attempted to do this in a variety of methods, including David Allen’s GTD method and a method that a consultant I had worked with swore by. This guy had worked for a number of years at the prestigeous McKinsey and Company consulting firm before starting his own shop. He had a BA from Yale, and a MBA from Harvard with a Masters in Philosophy thrown in for good measure. He was an information junkie too and managed to keep his files organized in a wall of metal cabinets and cross referenced on an Excel spreadsheet. What he didn’t mention is that his filing system was effective because he had a full time research assistant who’s primary duty was to keep the files moving in and out and the spreadsheet updated. He also had an administrative assistant who spent considerable time riding herd over the filing system. In other words, his system was effective not because of its intrinsic design but because he had two full time employees keeping it organized.

I have an almost obscene diversity of interests from management theory and economics to mixed martial arts and boxing. I’ve amazed many people at my wide range of knowledge on topics ranging from intellectual to trivial. My assumption had been that the fuel behind my diversity of knowledge was this endless pipeline of information from countless media sources. When I read Ferriss’ emphasis on “selective ignorance” and eliminating all most all media inputs I almost thought about giving up on the book then and there. Assuming that I *could* go cold turkey on my information inputs I was certain that either my brain would begin to atrophy within a matter of days and I’d begin to suffer intellectual withdrawal symptoms. My secondary concern was that even if I *could* swear off all media that I’d miss out on so much valuable information as to hurt me professionally, socially, intellectually and any number of other ways. I had always believed that what separated the intelligent and successful from the dull normal and mediocre was their ability to assimilate massive amounts of information.

Anyway, I made it through the rest of the book and was so impressed by it that I wanted to try the lifestyle design methodology he described. Figuring that if I was going to to it I’d do it right, I grudgingly made the decision to try the “low information diet”–maybe not for the week that Ferriss’ suggested but at least for a couple of days.

Here are Ferriss’ ground rules for the “media fast”:

–No newspaper, magazines, audio books or non music radio. Music is permitted at all times
–No news websites whatsoever
–No television at all, except for one hour of pleasure viewing each evening
–No reading books, except for 4HWW and 1 hour of fiction pleasure reading before bed
–No web surfing at the desk unless it is necessary to complete a task for that day

I modified these rules somewhat for my own circumstances without changing the intent of the “fast”. I decided that I wouldn’t watch TV at all. Since I am a working boxing/MMA journalist, however, I made an exception for televised boxing and MMA events. This seemed to fall under the same proviso as permitting mission critical web surfing. With the exception of that modification, however, I did exactly what he said. Instead of Bloomberg or CNBC on the radio I listened to music ranging from Frank Sinatra to Slayer depending on my mood at the time. I avoided news websites like the plague, didn’t read my usual profusion of newspapers and magazines and didn’t download any books from Audible. I thought that after a few days I’d be miserable, anxious and on edge–as well as poorly informed and intellectually malnourished.

Imagine my surprise when my reaction to the “media fast” was diametrically opposite to what I had feared would happen. I was happy and cheerful, more relaxed and actually felt like a weight had been lifted from my mind. I honestly didn’t miss any of it–I was more productive and effective in my work and actually felt more intellectually potent without the burden of processing the incoming barrage of media.

And even more amazingly I didn’t miss anything. I honestly didn’t feel less informed for not watching the news or following the minute by minute machinations of the financial markets. The only news story–and I use that term loosely–that I didn’t find out about until several days later was the near-fight between George Clooney and Fabio at a Los Angeles restaurant.

I’ve continued my media fast to this day. I’ve made a few more modifications–I allow myself to scan through magazines and non-fiction books when I’m in Barnes and Noble, but I don’t allow myself to buy them. Aside from that, however, I’m still doing the media fast as Ferriss outlined it: no newspapers, no magazines, no news websites, no TV, no non-music radio. I did allow myself to watch a few films, but they were all high quality (”Short Cuts” and “Godsford Park” by Robert Altman, Woody Allen’s “Match Point”, and a few others).

And just like Ferriss said its amazing how easily you can stay at least peripherally knowledgeable on news and current events without paying attention to them. The headlines on the top of the screen in my GMail account, listening to the conversations of others and when all else fails asking people “what’s going on in the world” kept me apprised of the major stories–assuming you call the Barry Bonds indictment and OJ Simpson’s legal woes important news.

Something funny began to happen then–I started to feel pity for those who’s lives were still driven by news, talk radio, TV shows, etc. It may have been a self rationalization, but I started to feel like I had reached some sort of higher understanding about the world that spun around me. Ignorance might not be bliss, but “selective ignorance” is a very pleasant way to go through life

Is Time Management a Myth?

Posted on November 20, 2007
Filed Under 4 Hour Work Week, lifestyle design, productivity | Leave a Comment

I used to obsess about how much I was or wasn’t getting done in a day. I blamed most of my personal and professional problems on the one-two punch of disorganization and poor time management. Obviously organization is, in theory, a component of time management. Most of the time management books I’ve read provide a methodology heavy on organization. Since organization encompasses a number of other lifestyle components we’ll deal with it separately.

I’ve always had strange work habits. First of all, I’m typically very nocturnal and like to stay up late. Sometimes I’ll go through phases where I get up extremely early and go to bed at a reasonable hour but by nature I’m a night person. Since most of the world operates on the opposite schedule–more so in the pre-Internet era than now–this was always a problem for me educationally and professionally. I tried every trick in the book to “reset my biological clock” in order to get myself on the schedule that decent society insisted I exist on. I’ve probably gone through a phase where I obsess about my strange sleep habits every few years since I’ve been in high school. Most recently, I went through one about a year ago. I decided that my personal and professional life was suffering from the schedule I kept and so I set out to do something about it. I tried to stop drinking caffeine to make me sleep better and when that failed I tried drinking more of it to keep me awake. I tried bi-phasic sleeping, which essentially means you sleep fewer hours at night and take a nap during the day to compensate. That was what I had been doing all along but I tried to do this on a daytime schedule. I tried light therapy, vitamin supplements, sleep medication, changing my diet several times–going from eating a lot of meat, to eating no meat, to a vegan diet and several permutations thereof. I’ve maintained a fairly regular workout regimen for the past several years, but during this phase I tried several variations on that designed to get my screwed up biological clock to tick in time with the rest of the civilized world. Nothing worked–I was still a night person.

Having failed in my efforts to become an early riser I switched my focus to another component of time management: if I couldn’t sleep on a regular schedule I was going to make damn sure that I was managing my time while I was awake to achieve greatest productivity. I tried every kind of paper based and computer based organizer, along with an endless array of PDA’s and smartphones. I tried multi-tasking, organizing certain tasks and certain projects into different “blocks” each day. I tried–unsuccessfully–to implement a number of well regarded time management methodologies. David Allen’s cult-like “GTD method” was the most effective but I never was able to implement it fully.

With time management a life long albatross around my neck you can imagine how liberating it was to read Ferriss’ suggestion to “forget about” traditional concepts of time management. The point is not to be busy all of the with what he calls a “work fidget” as this sort of busyness by design is often an avoidance mechanism that keeps you from doing what is *really* important. The goal is to work effectively–doing that which brings you closer to your goals–and not efficiently–doing the most work in the least amount of time.

The profound realization that I derived from reading Ferriss’ section on time management seems so simple but made such a huge impact in how I view life and work. Most time management techniques and methodologies attempt to create a system to help you deal with the never ending “inputs” that life throws at you. The basic concept behind most time management techniques is to quickly identify, categorize and prioritize every “input”. At that point you’re supposed to “do it, delegate it, or defer it”. David Allen speaks of “closing open loops” as an important component of the GTD method and during the implementation you’ve required to go around your home and office and find every “open loop”–essentially, you’re walking around looking for more “inputs” that you’re required to deal with.

After reading this section of 4HWW the proverbial light bulb went off over my head: the trick wasn’t to find the best method to deal with all of the “inputs”–the trick was to reduce the “inputs” you have to deal with in the first place. And that’s where I’m going to start my implementation of “The 4-Hour Work Week”–by reducing my “inputs” or as Ferriss calls it “E for elimination”

More about me, specifically more about “why now?”

Posted on November 20, 2007
Filed Under 4 Hour Work Week, bio, meta | Leave a Comment

In the first entry on this blog I posed the question “why me and why now?”. I realized reading back over it that I only answered half of the question. So since you know my motivations for changing my personal life, I’ll give you some background about the personal context.

The impact that “The 4-Hour Work Week” had on me could possibly be a matter of timing. I had gone through a bunch of personal transformations and was already questioning a lot of the assumptions I had about life and how I wanted to live it. I’m not trying to evoke sympathy or anything like that, but my discovery of the book came at the end of a very difficult period in my life. Within a matter of days one of my best friends was in a serious car accident, a major project I was trying to put together to infuse some capital in my business fell apart, and a girl I had fallen head over heels for and wanted to marry dumped me without warning and without explanation. The upheaval in my romantic life was sort of the last straw–this was the first woman I’d met since my divorce that didn’t make me feel like I was “trading down”. On the heels of the other two big crises of the week it felt like karma had set me up with a couple of jabs and was trying to knock me out with an uppercut.

With all that was going on in my life its not surprising that I was in a questioning mode about how I wanted to live and what I wanted to do. Reading 4HWW essentially provided the answers to the questions I was asking. It was as if the universe had taken drastic action to knock me off of the wrong path, and my serendipitous discovery of the book was the road map I was being given to get back on the *right* path.

So that’s the personal context in which I embark upon the effort to re-design my personal and professional lifestyle. It was as if my previous path in life had come to a dead end by crashing into a brick wall, but as a result of the chaos I’ve found the direction that I should have been moving in all along.

About the book…

Posted on November 18, 2007
Filed Under 4 Hour Work Week | Leave a Comment

Obviously I was impressed with “The 4-Hour Work Week” or I wouldn’t have decided to re-engineer my life based on its concepts. I wanted to give some more background on how I came to read the book, and the incredible impact it had on me.

As an aside, I’ll strongly suggest that you read the book as well. Many of the things I talk about on this site will make a lot more sense if you have, and it very well may have the same impact on you that it did on me. You can find it at any decent bookstore, or you can throw me a bone and order it from the Amazon link to the right.

I had volunteered to help a friend do some business writing for a company he was starting–stuff like marketing content, executive bios, etc. Pretty basic stuff, really. One of the other people involved said that he thought that many of the concepts outlined in “The 4-Hour Work Week” would be useful as “marketing angles”. He asked if I had read the book and since I never like to say that I *haven’t* read a book I answered in the affirmative. At that point I was committed, and since he had asked me to join in on a conference call to brainstorm on marketing ideas I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. I headed up to the local Barnes and Noble and purchased the book. I figured I’d head to Starbucks, have a latte and skim through it to get the general idea.

Three hours later I had read it from cover to cover and I was blown away. I guess I should point out I was an English Lit major in college and have considered at times getting my PhD in the subject. In other words, I’ve read my share of books including all of the classics and other books that educated people are *supposed* to read. Without a doubt I’d place 4HWW among the best five books I’ve ever read. Not because of the writing–which is fine, but not exactly Faulkner–but because of the impact it had on me. I’ve always been something of a free thinker, but reading the book totally transformed my view of life and professional success. For that reason alone, it is one of the most significant books I’ve ever read.

That night I re-read it from cover to cover and then loaned it to a friend to read. After I did that, I wanted to refer to it again so I went out and bought a second copy. I’ve loaned it or recommended it to over a dozen people now and have found that it illicits very strong and divergent reactions. In other words, people either love it or hate it. More specifically, perhaps, the either “get it” or they don’t. People are either blown away by it or they can’t understand what the big deal is. If anything, this dichotomy of opinion is further evidence of the importance of 4HWW. I’ve always gravitated toward art, literature, music, film, etc. that evoked strong reaction one way or the other. If art is designed to make people think and feel then it should, by definition, piss off a lot of people. At the very least, it should leave at least some of the people wondering what the big deal is–and that is precisely what the 4HWW does.

The beginning…

Posted on November 17, 2007
Filed Under 4 Hour Work Week, lifestyle design, meta | Leave a Comment

This blog will chronicle my efforts to re-design my lifestyle following the blueprint of Tim Ferriss’ book “The 4-Hour Work Week”. I’ll also be adding other sources to provide a blueprint for my new professional efforts and lifestyle changes. One such source will be another excellent blog devoted to “simple productivity” called Zen Habits.

So why me and why now? Most people would say that they envy my professional life, and to some extent I’ve already “seen the promised land” that Ferriss outlines. Until reading his book about a month ago I couldn’t figure out–if other people “envied” my professional life so much–why I found it so draining and miserable. What I learned in “The 4-Hour Work Week” was that while I had built a career for myself that let me work from anywhere with a decent Internet connection that it was still too dependent on my day-to-day input. I was always working, and often slept with my Blackberry on my chest so I’d immediately wake up should an important email, text message or phone call arrive. Instead of developing a career that gave me freedom and independence, I was essentially an 80 hour slave to my business. I was my “own boss”, but since I didn’t have any employees to delegate anything to I did everything from promotion to web design to basic clerical tasks. I could work from my laptop computer anywhere with an Internet connection, but since I was singlehandedly keeping all of my professional plates in the air I seldom had time to travel. When I did manage to get out of town I couldn’t relax–it was essentially the same thing as every other day in a different venue.

If anything, I should have more freedom than most people–I’m divorced, with no kids and only two Jack Russell Terriers as “dependents”. I’m 41, but my doctor tells me I’m in better shape than most of the 21 year olds he sees. I’ve still got all of my hair and most of my charm, wit and intelligence. I have a wide range of interests including wine, food, cigars, travel, skiing, snowboarding along with a whole list of things that I’d like to do and learn. Until I “hit the wall” professionally a few months ago I had plenty of money to do basically whatever I wanted to–but I didn’t have freedom or time. My idea of adventure was working from my local Starbucks instead of my home office.

Until I read “The 4-Hour Work Week” (which I’ll henceforth abbreviate as “4HWW”) I had a number of ideas about how to improve my professional and personal life. Unfortunately, these ideas were all wrong. I thought that if I could find a partner or an investor to provide some capital I could “do things right” meaning I’d advertise more, market myself more, etc. I was very fortunate that several attempts to forge such a partnership didn’t transpire. Otherwise I’d be stuck in the same miserable situation with someone else’s money at stake and it would be even more difficult to make the necessary changes.

I don’t have any artistic talent–I can’t sing, draw, paint, or play an instrument. I do have one very valuable gift, however: I can write. Not only can I write well, I can write quickly and easily about any number of subjects. Not to toot my own horn, but writing is almost effortless to me. I’m also fortunate to be a relatively intelligent and quick witted person, with expertise on topics ranging from economics and business theory to gambling and sports handicapping to boxing and mixed martial arts. I can write in any style and about anything. For me writing isn’t an “end”, it’s a “means”–I don’t fantasize about writing the “great American novel” or blockbuster screenplay. What I want to do is use my writing to help finance a life that provides more freedom and satisfaction. I’d like to be able to write several hours a day and have the rest of my time to do with as I wished. Initially, I just want to relocate to a city that offers more of the things I enjoy but within two or three years I want to do what Ferriss outlines and spend my time traveling. I want to spend my winters snowboarding in Utah or Lake Tahoe, my summers in the Pacific Northwest and the spring and fall wherever I damn well please.

The good news for me is that I’ve already taken steps to transition into a career as a full time writer. I already contribute to several web sites weekly and am near a deal that will pay me a nice chunk of change for a regular writing gig. Still, I want this to be supplementary to the sort of passive income generation that Ferriss describes in detail in his book. And though I may be further along than the average man my age I’ve still got a number of lifestyle changes to implement.

So that’s why I started this blog–I’m going to make myself a case study for the concepts that Ferriss outlines in 4HWW. I’ve got the perfect personal situation to do it, as well as professional skills that lend themselves to becoming a member of what he describes as the “New Rich”.

I haven’t really decided on the format of this blog or what direction it will take–I’m just going to start and see what happens.