The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich
What if everything you’ve been taught about work, retirement, and success is completely wrong?
Tim Ferriss was working 14-hour days at his sports nutrition company when he decided to challenge every assumption about the traditional career path. The result is a radical blueprint that has transformed millions of lives worldwide.
This #1 New York Times bestseller spent four years on the bestseller list and has been translated into 40 languages. The book introduces you to the “New Rich,” people who have abandoned the deferred-life plan of working grueling hours for decades in exchange for a distant retirement that may never come.
Ferriss presents his powerful DEAL formula: Define what you really want, Eliminate time-wasting activities, Automate your income, and Liberate yourself from a single location. You’ll learn practical strategies for outsourcing tasks to virtual assistants, creating automated businesses, and taking “mini-retirements” throughout your life instead of waiting until you’re 65.
The book delivers actionable tactics for negotiating remote work, building passive income streams, and multiplying the value of your money through geographic arbitrage. Ferriss shows that living like a millionaire isn’t about having millions in the bank. It’s about having the freedom to do what you want, when you want, wherever you want.
Stop trading your best years for a retirement you might never enjoy.
Interesting Facts
Rejected by 26 Publishers: The 4-Hour Workweek was turned down by 26 out of 27 publishers before finding a home. Even after it sold, a major bookseller sent Ferriss historical data suggesting it would never be a mainstream hit. He wrote it anyway, speaking directly to two close friends and their problems.
Four Years on Bestseller Lists: The book spent four years on The New York Times Best Seller List and sold around 2.1 million copies. It was translated into 40 languages and became one of the most influential business books of the 2000s.
Born from Burnout: Ferriss developed the book’s ideas while working grueling 14-hour days at his sports nutrition supplement company, BrainQUICKEN. His personal burnout and escape from workaholism became the genesis of the entire book.
Princeton Lectures Shaped the Book: The format took shape during lectures Ferriss delivered on high-tech entrepreneurship at Princeton University, his alma mater. The lectures described his own experiences with company automation and lifestyle development.
The DEAL Acronym Framework: The book is structured around the acronym DEAL, which stands for Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation. Each section corresponds to a step in the process of redesigning your lifestyle and work.
Blog Became Top 1,000: Ferriss launched his Experiments in Lifestyle Design blog alongside the book. Within six months, it became one of the top 1,000 blogs in the world out of more than 120 million blogs at the time.
Wikipedia Founder Took Action: Jimmy Wales, cofounder of Wikipedia, said he secretly moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a month after reading the book. The book inspired many high-profile readers to experiment with location independence.
Featured on The Office: The book was mentioned in a 2011 episode of The Office entitled “Lotto,” in which warehouse foreman Darryl Philbin uses his interpretation of the book’s ideas to do less work after not receiving a promotion.
Tim's Tango World Record: Ferriss holds a Guinness World Record in tango as the first American in history to achieve this honor. He competed in the Tango World Championship semifinals with only five months of intense practice.
Quotes
“Tomorrow becomes never. No matter how small the task, take the first step now!” – Timothy Ferriss
“Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.” – Timothy Ferriss
“Define and conquer your fears.” – Timothy Ferriss
“By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.” – Timothy Ferriss
“I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” – Timothy Ferriss
“Lack of time is actually lack of priorities.” – Timothy Ferriss
“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.” – Timothy Ferriss
“$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.” – Timothy Ferriss
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.” – Timothy Ferriss
“Dreamlining is so named because it applies timelines to what most would consider dreams.” – Timothy Ferriss
“I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” – Timothy Ferriss
“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” – Timothy Ferriss
“You are the average of the five people you associate with most.” – Timothy Ferriss
“Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory. Enter the world of elimination.” – Timothy Ferriss
“The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.” – Timothy Ferriss
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