“I want to start a business so that I can spend more time on rock climbing.” — said by every person that has read the 4-Hour Workweek.
That’s not how it works!
Sorry to break it to you. I don’t care if you’re a college student, a young professional, or married in your 30s, I have to open your eyes on something.
There are a few reality checks I have to give you:
- If you suck at your job, that’s not a good thing. It just means you’re a shitty employee. It doesn’t make you an entrepreneur. It means your work ethic sucks, you don’t have the drive, or you just can’t get the job done. Don’t brag about it thinking that it makes you special.
- You can’t start a business to focus on something else. You start a business because you want to. You start a business because you want to dedicate ALL of your time to it. It’s something that you really want to do. There’s no quick fix or guaranteed results.
- You don’t have to be rich or have any special skills to make money. This is my favorite one! I even wrote a book on how you can start freelancing (on sale at Amazon). A little work ethic will go a long way.
Where am I going with all of this?
This is the extreme work ethic alert.
Every single entrepreneur that I know works hard. They don’t take it easy. They don’t climb rocks in South Africa while their business generates $10,000 a day.
You have to be willing to put in the work.
The good news is that there are different types of work. There’s physical labor and then there’s mental labor. Physical jobs are anything that you have to use your body to perform (filed under: DUH!). You know what mental work is. I don’t have to explain this to you.
I want to introduce a third type of work: growing the balls to take on huge risks.
This type of work is difficult. You have to risk something. You get no guaranteed results. You have to put in a lot of work.
You can release a course, start a totally new site (Kettlebell Rebels), or invest a huge amount time/money into something that comes with no guarantee of anything. The whole point is that you share your ideas with the world and put in the work.
You to make the decision to put the work in and take some risks, we can move forward…
Make it remarkable. Boring sucks.
“It’s amazing that a man who is dead can talk to people through these pages. As long as this books survives, his ideas live.” — Christopher Paolini
There’s enough boring out there. Don’t put in hundreds of hours into something lame. That’s pathetic and laziness in itself.
The other day, a reader asked me about starting a blog. I told them not to bother with personal finance unless they have a really compelling story. There’s enough broke financial writers out there. There’s enough boring stories out there. It’s great that you want to get out of debt, but I would rather hear from someone who never got into debt!
I wanted to find more answers on building something from the ground up. So I reached out through my fitness Twitter to Gary Vaynerchuk to ask him how he would build a blog.
@kettlebellrebel pump out good shit over and over and over
— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) August 22, 2013
Damn. It really is that simple. Pump out that good stuff over and over and over. Stop being lazy. I’m looking at you! Chug that coffee and get to work.
What about The 4-Hour Workweek?
I love this book. It is likely the book that changed my life forever. It changed how I view work, retirement, and travel.
The problem is that it’s open to interpretation and one can easily take it the wrong way when it comes to hours worked and getting things done.
The bold truth is that Ferriss works like an animal. He doesn’t take it easy. As you can tell, he pumps out books like crazy. He just doesn’t do things he doesn’t want to do. He focuses his energy on projects he cares about. He cuts out the useless stuff and mercilessly focuses on what he cares about. That’s should be what matters. Not his exact schedule.
Many folks will bash the book for this reason alone. They get offended that Ferriss doesn’t only work four hours per week.
Did they really expect him to be idle?
The book is great. Just don’t use it to convince yourself to do nothing all week.
Can you take it easy?
Of course you can take it easy if you want to. Nobody will force you to work all day every single day of the week. The choice is yours. It depends on how quickly you want to achieve results and what you want.
From what I’ve gathered from successful folks is that they’ve created a life that they don’t want to run away from. They enjoy working. They don’t complain about it. They look forward to the daily challenges.
What if you really want to relax?
I love relaxing and hanging out with friends. I’ve been in the sun so much this summer and I don’t think I’ve ever been darker.
The problem is when you always want to relax and break away from work.
The goal of the extreme work ethic is find to work that you LOOK FORWARD to doing.
I noticed something strange in the summer of 2009…
Three of us were drinking having a good time. We were about to go out. Right before we left, I noticed that I really didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay in and write. Seriously! I love my drinks, but I also love my writing. The trick is to find something that you wouldn’t mind doing on a Saturday night.
I actually started writing this article on a Saturday night. I was set to go out, but suddenly I got the urge to hang out and write. It’s a weird feeling. Then there are times where on a Wednesday I have zero inspiration. So I go out, get wasted, have a blast, and wake up with tons of ideas.
If you want to freelance, start a blog, or work for yourself, you have to be ready to work. I know that this sounds corny, but it’s true. Even smart work is still hard work. Taking risks is EXTREMELY challenging work.
Is it worth it?
That’s for you to decide.
For me, the mix of money and freedom is worth it. It also really feels good to help others reach their goals.
Below is a comment from a reader that made me smile the other morning:
“Glad to have found your sites, (and one of your videos). It gave me some strength to stay up tonight and do what I want to do.”
That’s pretty cool!
Do you enjoy helping others?
I believe that it’s all worth it. What do you have to lose? Not trying is way worse than failing.
This is the extreme work ethic alert. Do you accept the challenge?