Speech 3: Can we all have a 4 hour work week?

Can we all have a 4 hour work week?

This question has been burning in my head ever since I read a book last year I read a book called the 4 hour work week. The author, Timothy Ferris, talks about two main concepts:

1) how to restructure your work so that you don't have to always been working in the same location – whether it be an office or your home.
2) he talks about the idea of establishing an income stream that supports your lifestyle.

Many of his ideas sound fanciful, but from what I have learned, his concepts are a reality for many people in the world.

Today I want to introduce you to a few concepts that could enable you to work 4 hours a week.

And by the end of this talk you will be able to decide for yourself whether or not you want to join me in my quest to make these concepts a reality.

Dreams

This all begins with dreams. What are your dreams? Do you want to travel the world? Do you have a hobby that you want to devote yourself to but can't because work is getting in the way? Do you just want to be able to watch tv all day without worrying about it?

I really want to be able to fly to Italy on a whim. I really want my wife to be able to fly back to China and visit her family when she needs to, not when our budget permits.

Revenue Streams and Freedom

What's preventing you from making these dreams reality? If you're like me, money is the issue.

I also have a mental barrier to doing this, as I consider my dream to be in the realm of the 'rich'. Only a rich person can fly around the world on a whim. Regular people have to work 9-5 to pay their bills.

One concept I got from the 4 hour work week is that I don't need to be rich to have these dreams. I just have the same things the rich do:

1. I need to have a revenue stream that supports my dreams. And,
2. I need to have the time and freedom to do the things I want to do.

There are different ways to do this, one of which is running your own business. Businesses can earn a lot more money than a regular 9-5 job and meet the first objective. However, if you're like me you think of running a business as being a monster project that will take away all of your personal time and prevent you from meeting the second objective.

But Tim alerted me to another concept: I want to be a business owner and not a business operator. I want the business to make money for me and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it.

Examples

Is such a thing possible? Absolutely.

Tim gives some great examples. Consider Microsoft. Do you think Microsoft manufacturers the XBOX 360? Not at all – there is a company called Flextronics, based in Singapore that does contract engineering and manufacturing for almost every major company in the world including Microsoft. So Microsoft had the idea – which wasn't even original, btw – and then paid someone else to design and manufacture it. All Microsoft does is sell it and write the software for it. But they probably don't do that either – odds are that they outsource the majority of their coding to India or China. Microsoft doesn't do much more than manage things, but we can assume that Microsoft makes a good income from Xbox 360 sales.

If that's too out of reach for you, consider a story I read about in the Vancouver Sun last year. There is a technology blogger in Vancouver that began his online career by creating a website to answer computer-related problems. Over the years he tweaked his site, added advertising, etc, and he has managed to build a site that generates so much income that he can now quite comfortably work 5-10 hours a week and still earn enough to buy a house in West Vancouver.

I hear these stories and I ask, why can't I do this?

Connections

Tim lays out a pretty simple recipe for creating similar kinds of businesses and gives some really great advice on how to get started. There's nothing new in what he's saying – essentially find a product or service that fills a niche need.

It's the implementation that's the trick – taking the concept and doing something with it. I've been plagued with ideas and concepts for many years now, but I never know what to do with them.

I've finally come to understand that people like Tim have established something that I have not -- he has a network of people who can help him make his ideas a reality.

That's what I need too. I really need a team that can help take me from the vague to the specific.

I'm sure we all have business ideas in our heads. What I propose is that maybe as a group we can take the concepts in our heads and make them a reality. Maybe you are like me – you have an idea for an internet based business but just don't know if there's a market for it. Don't even know how to figure out if there is a market. Maybe you don't know if the idea is realistic. I believe that together we can collaborate to answer these questions and create unique businesses.

We all have different areas of knowledge and expertise. We don't just need professionals -- lawyers, MBAs, accountants – we need people who are skilled in all kinds of different businesses and product areas. What's more important than the skill, though, is the network of connections that we each have. Maybe you don't have the skills we need, but somebody you know does.

My concept is that as a group we can tap into our networks and make our ideas a reality.

Conclusion

So I ask you, will you join me on this quest to figure out how to have a 4 hour work week?
My objective today was to introduce you to a few concepts that could enable us to make our dreams reality.

I have talked about dreams, revenue streams and about being a business owner not a business operator. I've proposed that as a team we will be much more successful than on our own.

So now I ask you, will you join me on my quest to make my dreams reality?

~Dave Brown, January 5, 2011