I’ll admit that the title is a bit misleading. There are several books that have profoundly impacted me. But this blog is about, well, “life hacks and real estate” and other related musings that I find interesting, and not every book I’ve read over the years pertains to those things.
But I would be remiss not to mention one that did have a huge impact in pushing me towards real estate and furthering my curiosity for life in general: The 4-Hour Workweek
Before going any further, I need to give a shoutout to my high school friend, Darren Squashic for recommending this book to me way back in the day. Darren is a killer photographer (check out his stuff here) who figured out long before I did that a person can make a living pursuing his/her passions.
In fact, that’s what The 4-Hour Work Week is all about. It’s about not spending the prime of your life doing something you dread (for me, and for many of us, this would include working in an office) simply trying to make enough money so that you can enjoy the final few years (i.e., “retirement”) but rather finding work that is enjoyable and sustainable and living off of that for the rest of your life.
This might sound like a pipe dream, but my favorite quality of the book is that it isn’t merely inspirational. Tim Ferriss, the author, carefully spells out very practical ways to accomplish this vision for work and life while giving plenty of examples along the way (and in the back of the book). So, in the end, the 4-Hour Work Week wasn’t merely a vision for me of what the future could be but was also a roadmap, and eventually, that roadmap led me to real estate investing, among other things.
So check it out. Even those who are happy with their employment situation would benefit from Ferriss’s thoughts on automating life, decluttering, thinking logically, rethinking wealth, and being creative. This is one of the few books that I believe is a must-read for everyone.