The book… Which is NOT about how to be lazy and successful, despite the title… Click it to get it from Amazon…
Aah, it’s Friday, and I have all of 30 minutes before I’m supposed to hit send on this email, plus another deadline in 90 minutes that I still need to hit…
So I need a topic for Grab Bag Friday that I can write about fast, and with competence…
Which usually means a rant of sorts!
So…
Let’s talk about the myth of the “4-Hour Workweek” — with no disrespect to Tim Ferriss.
The 4-Hour Workweek is a very sellable book title. In fact, it came from an experiment, in the market, to see what people would respond to most (read the book for details).
Why is it so successful and easy to sell?
In short, because it promises that you can be both lazy and successful at the same time.
Here we have a successful entrepreneur and author who is telling us we only have to work four hours a week, and we can enjoy the same success he has!
Oh the life!
The thing is, YES, Tim did create a business that required him to work four hours per week on the tough stuff. The minutiae, the details, the customer service, and things like that.
And yes, that’s possible for you, too.
But Tim didn’t get to that point goofing off in all but four hours of his week. And you can’t build a sustainable, successful, growing business in that way, either.
At least, not if EVERYBODY has that attitude.
Let’s see, 24 hours per day times 7 days per week is 168 hours. That’s the real work week for a successful entrepreneur…
But most of that doesn’t look like “active” work. Much of that involves thinking, strategizing, taking in new ideas, and giving your conscious mind rest and space so your unconscious mind can come up with the real breakthroughs.
In order to support that, you often have full-time employees picking up the slack on most of the detail stuff in your business, to allow you as the entrepreneur, brain, and leader of the organization to do the important work.
Maybe you have a warehouse and fulfillment center that works business hours, if not more. Maybe you outsource your tech, but they have 24/7 support staff there for you if things aren’t working 100%. Maybe your customer service call center and email are handled by your staff or a third-party operation, but they’re also available at least during business hours, if not 24/7.
And you, you come in to drive important initiatives, implement systems, and push the business forward. And much of that is done in four hours per week. But that doesn’t mean the whole work week is four hours.
Your business is running 40 hours per week or more. And most of your time spent outside the office is spent either actively or passively creating the future of your business.
At least, that’s what it looks like if you want to build a successful business.
Most wannabe entrepreneurs and business people succumb to another vision of success entirely — the myth of lazy and successful existing side-by-side…
Trust me, I’ve felt the pull.
I want to believe that I can enjoy success without doing the work. And from time to time, I’ve tried!
But the reality is, when you’re not doing things to actively create value in the world, the value (meaning money) doesn’t actively come to you.
In other words, when you get lazy, the success dries up!
We all want to believe there’s a way to have it all, without the blood, sweat, and tears. But somebody’s shedding something to make your success a reality. Or else your success isn’t a reality!
Once you know this though, it liberates you…
Okay, so you recognize that success doesn’t come from laziness. What you need to look at is what it takes to attract success.
Because you also don’t have to do back-breaking labor, or do every little thing in your business, if you want to enjoy success.
Take Tim Ferriss’s supplement business, for example. He found a way to make about four hours of his own hard work every week enough to keep the business going and growing.
He found a way to leverage the work of others to take care of all but the most consequential thinking and decision-making.
He worked hard and smart to work less. But that’s not lazy. That’s being careful and conscientious with his efforts. And leveraging the work of others to make his work go farther.
But it was everything else Tim had going on in his business PLUS what he was doing 24/7 that set him up for his own 4 hours to make all the difference.
Carry this thought with you going forward…
If you’re a copywriter, you know how easy it is to sell the promise of lazy success. We all want to believe it. Even when we’ve bought into it over and over again, just to come up short.
But if you’re serious about creating your successful life and business, you can not get stuck in the trap of believing that you can get away with four lazy hours of work per week. You have to recognize that there will be effort from SOMEWHERE that will make your success a reality.
Then you just have to find out where!
Have a great weekend!
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
