About the book…

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

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.

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