Where To Really Begin Part 2
Originally Posted On July 3, 2007
In my last post, I mentioned the new book 4 hour work week by Tim Ferriss. I’ll mention again, that I strongly recommend that you DO NOT attempt to read this book until you have read The E-Myth Revisited. In addition to the challenging personal & business recommendations Tim suggests, several key items & concepts from the E-Myth are directly tied to Tim’s content.
I strongly recommend any new or aspiring entrepreneurs to be read this book as close to the beginning of their ventures as possible. This is because this book covers old material in radical, yet relatively easy ways and gets to the heart of most entrepreneurial and even working employee issues…YOU.
First, Tim does an excellent job of not only identifying common people issues directly related to not getting tasks and goals accomplished. He puts these issues right in your face and forces one to address them internally and honestly choose a method of correcting course. For example, in each chapter, the reader is supposed to complete a “comfort challenge” which is exactly what it sounds like. You are given a specific time line, usually no longer than 2 days to do attempt something you probably are not used to doing, and likely would not do given an alternative. One such challenge from the book is to attempt to contact a famous person by phone that is typically difficult to get in contact with and get some advice from them based on your business needs. Once you have contacted that person, you need to be prepared to speak with that person with confidence to get the most out of an otherwise brief conversation. Another comfort challenge Tim requires is for any reader including females to attempt to get the phone number of several attractive members of the opposite sex. The goal is not to get the number perhaps, but instead to get used to uncomfortable situations, improving thinking on your feet, and eliminating fear in general.
Fear is a key item Tim tackles and in a very direct way his bluntness makes the reader really address their fears whether it be about quitting their job, going into business for the first time, asking your boss to work from home, etc. I personally found this part of the book to be key since it really let me know where my fears were and what I needed to do to address them. My favorite quote from the book is “Whatever you are afraid of is most likely what you need to do”. He even requires the reader to detail the worst case scenario that could happen once you quit your job today to start a business, and how you could get back to work in your field at your current level. All of his exercises are real eye openers if embraced and can really teach one about themselves and perceived fears vs. reality.
One of the other really huge keys this book identifies is the fact that there is way too much information available about most subjects and most of us try to consume it all, digest it all, and apply it all at the same time. Tim explains why less is way more and that any information that is obtained is ONLY useful if it is directly applied to some immediate action. This is definitely true of aspiring entrepreneurs like myself that is trying to learn about making decent money online but has little information on how. If you do not read any other part of this book at least check this out. Tim addresses all information consumption issues and directly ties them to human misuse such as incessant email checking, organization and handling, forms of mass media (blogs, casual internet surfing, tv news, non-fiction audiobooks, non-fiction books, newspapers, news web sites, general television.), and human interruption from phones, people in your cube/desk. All are integral parts of our lives but he has provided some unique but effective ways to screen all this information and train it all to come to you as you can use it. Also he addresses why the current ways most of us deal with the aforementioned information sources is not only wrong, but horribly unproductive for personal and business interests. One of the most interesting and challenging comfort challenges in the book is the 5 day information fast. That’s right, no tv, radio, books, audio books, blogs, web surfing, etc for 5 days. The exercise is not to drive you crazy but instead to teach you to use your time on items of action, including more interaction with those individuals or hobbies you may have been ignoring a bit. The management of information is a constant theme throughout the book and must be read in it’s entirety for complete understanding. Again as usual, I could write about this book and how it’s helped me, but I’ll just stop and restate the obvious….get this book, then get into your business!!
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