The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

I am so excited to introduce this book it is one of my favorite non fiction books and has certainly changed the way I think about how you can create your life. When I say introduce this book, it is not new to the shelves and was actually first published a few years ago. Although this book is found in the business section of the book shops, I believe, especially, in this current climate, where many are being forced to changed and consider their futures, this book can be life changing. 

One of the things I love about this book is not only will it give you a new perspective on how you can run your life and generate income but it is packed with information. Sometimes, I get frustrated with some books because they seemed to withhold information as if trying tease you into purchasing the next book, but this book is open and honest and gives you all the information you need to get yourself started, if you want, to be shown, how to achieve what Tim wants us all to achieve which is a Four Hour Week Work. 

The first part of the book explains how the author got to the points he has. Tim seems to have lived his life breaking the rules and not because he was out and out naughty but he would question what he was being asked to, especially, if it did not make sense or he could see a better way to do it. Going through school, college and his first steps into the corporate world, Tim constantly questioned the way he was asked to perform tasks, at work routines he was told would take him a whole day to complete he managed to find a way to complete them in an hour, rather than the company taking this on board he was fired. 

However, even though he seem to have a naturally ability to think outside the box, he did not choose the easy way to learn the life he has now, after starting his own supplement company, as with most business owners, Tim quickly found himself working thirteen hour days trying to please all customers, acting as a control freak and trying to do everything himself, then a chance happening of Plato's 80/20 principle coming into his life and a nervous breakdown, Tim started to review his life, what he wanted from it and how it was currently working.  

The book discusses the principle that we all live by which is work hard, for many years, so we can save for our retirement, most of us even dream of retiring early. However, the book questions this, asking, why would you want to work hard through your prime years to save to do what you want when you reach retirement age, when actually by using the principles in this book you can generate, the income and life you want that will allow you to go into retirement now and enjoy it in your prime. The Four Hour Work Week refers to these people as the New Rich. Forget the status that corporations are so full of themselves about encouraging, work life balance, the problem with that is that there is only life and therefore, it should be lived now.   

Tim Ferris is a travel nut and spends a great deal of the year traveling round the world, but while he does that he continues to earn a very nice sum of money each month that funds this lifestyle. However, the book recognizes that some people enjoy their jobs, they enjoy the corporate world, it does not recommend for everyone just to pack up, try and find a product to sell and then go traveling, but what the book encourages is for you to look at how efficient your role is within your company, what are you wasting your time doing on a day to day basis that you could cease and create more time? Email for example, how much time is wasted in a pointless email chain, when a phone call would clear up the situation in five minutes, or how many hours have your spent in worthless meetings for them to achieve nothing. The books gives advice on you can review the way you work, how you stop the pointless, emails and meetings get more work done and maybe, be allowed to do it remotely and in less hours.

The book is full of case studies that show how many people have achieved this, including a single Mum who took her children on a world tour, a friend who met his wife to be in China and moved there but managing to keep his job in the States, and whole family who set off round the world on a boat. You can check out some of the case studies on The Four Work Week website.

As many of you are also aware working in a company or some people may have read Tom Friedman's, The World is Flat, many large corporations outsource their services to other parts of the world, India probably being the most common with now what is a huge IT Industry, a lot of time if you phone customer services you will not be talking to someone in the same country as yourself, but even down to the diagnosis of xrays or company accounts and even the writing of newspaper headlines are now all outsourced. However, these services, the book advocates, that they are there for everyone to take advantage of. Tim himself outsources all of his business, only checking in once a week for four hours to make sure that everything is ok.

If I was to have one criticism of the book, it is that, I worked in the corporate world for many years and some of tips and techniques, I don't really believe you will be able to achieve, some managers are very reluctant to let go of the reins, even if your job could be done without stepping into an office. However, when I put my self guru hat on maybe it was my limiting beliefs that stopped me from attempting to doing this. 

There is no doubt that Tim Ferris goes all out and practices what he preaches, however, as I said before, the book is packed with information, websites, phone numbers, lists even an invitation to send Tim and email so you can see the auto response and how to word it, so even if you just wanted to create some more spare time for yourself the techniques will help you. Also what I find really good is that the books gives your pitfalls so the author is honest when he has made mistake and what he has done to correct them. 

I believe there are many people who instead of working less are working harder and do not what to do anything to rock the boat, however, someone told me recently that if you are heading in the right direction of your goals and you step off the cliff the net will always find you. For many the time has come or is soon approaching where you are forced to make changes, everyone has a choice as to whether they make the changes positive, the Four Hour Work Week is an excellent start to show you how it can be done. 

For more information check out The Four Hour Work Week website

This book defiantly sits within my top ten list. 

As always UK option below, US option to the left. 

 

The Secret - Rhonda Byrne

In my very small world I take for granted that everyone has seen or read The Secret, however, that is not the case; it became a phenomena from day one, and you could really say that although only released in 2006 in can be regarded, in the world of self help, as a classic. I am still surprised by how many people have not even heard of it and I speak to many people who live their lives blaming all on others and never looking at the patterns of their behavior to understand why the negative aspects of it continue to happen and they have never been introduced to The Secret. 

The current economic climate is a perfect example, I recently have been helping a lot of people who are perpetual debtors, (I perhaps need to start looking at why I am attracting these people into my life, but maybe that is another blog) and when we get root of why these people always seem to find themselves in debt, we find that they believe that money is the root of all evil, that all though they dream of being as rich as Bill Gates, they actually don't think they deserve it, that money can bring unhappiness, that the only discussion they heard about money when they were growing up was of lack of it and therefore, they continue to believe that there is only lack of money and then they are surprised that they are not rolling around in a room filled with $20 bills. 

The goal of The Secret is to explain the universal law of attraction. Originally released as a film, it teaches you how your thoughts become your life. Using contributions from many leading experts in this field, such Bob Proctor, Wayne Dyer, Lisa Nichols, Jack Canfield, John Assaraf, Loral Langemeir, Dr John Demartini to name just a few. These are people who are living and breathing what they teach. 

The Secret explains how your thoughts become your life, as we are all energy our thoughts set the vibration of that energy and you connect with your vibrational match, it is explained in The Secret as if you thoughts are a magnet, you only attract those things that will stick to the magnet negative or positive. Or think of it another way; in order to watch CNN you tune into CNN it has a frequency you sit and watch the news and you don't questions it, you wouldn't be surprised if you tuned into ESPN, not see the CNN anchors reading the news, so you also can not be surprised if you constantly think about how much you hate your job, not to find your self in the job of your dreams. 

The law of attraction is not something you can switch on or off, it is there and it is working, it has no power to say this is a bad thought therefore, I will stop it, you control it. Look around you, do you have one of those friends that catches all the colds and flus and stomach bugs and I bet if you listen to them speak all they talk they about is being ill.

It happens in all areas of your life, money, relationships, family, career, health any area and The Secret discusses them all and gives tools and techniques that you can use to turn your thoughts and beliefs around. There are amazing stories from people who have turned their lives around by using the power of their thoughts, one in particular, Morris Goodman, who after a near fatal plane crash was told that if he was to survive he would never walk again and probably would never be able breath on his own, but a year later through the pure power of his thoughts, Morris walked, unaided, out of the hospital. 

If you have never been introduced to the Law of Attraction, firstly where have you been? secondly welcome, thirdly from the first sentence spoken or read it is jaw dropping not just because these facts are so amazing but also because it is astoundingly obvious, look at your at life now and then take notice of your thoughts and see how they match. The biggest learning for us all is that where we may have believed in past that your life just happened and your thoughts are as a result of that, you now learn that you had the order the wrong way round. 

If you life is not quite the way you want it to be or if it is a long way from that point, buy The Secret, whether you buy the film, the audio book or the book it will change your thoughts and therefore change your life. 

However, The Secret can be regarded as the Law of Attraction 101, and once you have soaked it up and started to see for yourself how you can manifest what you want, you start to have more questions than perhaps The Secret can answer for you and you need to take it to the next level such as Bob Doyle's Wealth Beyond Reason or Bob Proctor's The 11 Forgotten Laws regardless, if it is not there already The Secret should definitely be one you add to your library. 

Click here to see a little taster of the film, the links to Amazon US are on the left hand side of the page and as always to please my friends in the UK the links for Amazon UK are below. 

Here is to changing your thoughts and therefore, changing your life.

Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

This book strictly speaking is not a self help book, but read it and I dare you not to feel differently or want to make some changes in your life. Since its publication it has swept the cocktails bars and makeup counters of the world, Oprah loves it, it has a huge following of women and men of all backgrounds, to put it quite simply it has become the Manolo Blahniks of books.

The book, was borne out of a decision, by the author, to take a year out, after a very acrimonious divorce and heartbreaking love affair. The plan was to spend three months in each of her chosen destinations, Italy where she learned how eat; she ate with wild abandonment, anything and everything and at anytime of the day or night. India, where she learned how to Pray, how to quiet, her mind and listen to her inner voice and Indonesia, where she learned how to love, and I will let you read the book to find out the end to that story. 

The reason why I love this book and why I would and have recommended it to many of my friends, in fact I purchased many as stocking fillers this year, is not only because the author writes with such honesty and incredible humor; there a many laugh out loud moments in this book; but normally, an autobiographical book of this nature is because someone has suffered a life of abuse and degradation, but this is about a normal situation. Whilst it is devastating, and heartbreaking at the time it is happening, you feel as if your world is falling apart and that you will never feel normal again and that you are alone, but it is something, in some form or another, we have all been through and will probably go through again. 

It is about normal, you can fit yourself in Elizabeth's world and because you can see and feel through her pain, you can also see and feel yourself through her recovery and self discovery. 

A quote from the book that really struck me, was at a point where during her stay in Rome, she was doing really well but then she had a bit of wobble and she was sat on her apartment floor trying to talk herself through it. She recalled a time when she got into a elevator, in New York, as she turned to face the front she thought she saw someone she knew and was about to step forward and say hello when she realized it was a mirror and that person she recognized was herself, in her hour of need on her bathroom floor she wrote, "just remember at one time you recognized yourself as a friend". This resonated with me, woman can be the most special friends to others but rarely to themselves. 

The other thing, I love about this book, is through her self discovery, she suffers the same problems as everyone else. I rejoice in the fact that she struggles to meditate, because I really did believe that I was the only person who could not quiet their mind, and I was surrounded by all these other people who could sit crossed legged, shush their thoughts and reach Nivarna, but as a result of reading Elizabeth's fight to reach her inner self she has given me renewed motivation to reach mine and not to give up after two minutes because my mind keeps reminding me I forgot to put the dishwasher on and I still have not picked up that bit of fluff from the floor that I have been looking at for days. 

This book is a must for anyone who is on a journey of self discovery, and even if you are not and you want a good read with many laughs and few tears then this is the book. 

I have given you some links to the book, and to please my friends in the UK who always feel left out, the US Amazon option is on the left hand side of this blog and UK option is below. 

US

Click on the links on the left hand side of the page. 

UK


ENJOY

Self Help - Scam or Real

The self help industry is worth over ten billion dollars annually and that figure, particularly in this global recession, will grow. The big debate is it is a scam or do self help books really work? Do people appear to be happier, all evidence contrary I think, we seem more disillusioned, more aggressive, greedier and more unhealthy. Is is the fault of those that push personal development, or is at a result of political policies and economic climate. When times were good, we could afford more and therefore, wanted more. 

I have to walk through a large mall daily to get to my office and as you walk through the mall, there is a set of four doors stood in a row, side by side, and usually at one end one of the doors is open, and I watch people with interest as they approach this set of doors because even if people are on the other side from the door that is open they will cross all the way over and walk through the open door rather than make just a little bit of effort and push open the door that is right in front of them.

This is how, i view the self help industry, I think that the successful authors, such as Anthony Robbins, Dr John Demartini, Bob Doyle, Louise Hay, Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, to name a few, walk the walk and talk the talk and the reason why people continue to remain unchanged, even after reading these books, and why the self help industry gets such bad press is that people are not prepared to push the door.

We continue as humans to take the easy path even though sometimes it continues to cause unhappiness in our lives. Where as if, with just a little bit more consciousness about ourselves and the way our thoughts and beliefs affect our lives and by actually taking and following the advise of these experts, we could make a dramatic shift towards pure joy. 

Just spend a little bit of time today, listening the conversations of those around, whether they are friends, colleagues or just people you are sat next to in a restaurant. Take note of how many of these conversations are positive and how many are people complaining and enjoying doing it Listen to how you start a conversation with someone, do you always comment on the bad weather or how long it took you to get to work, take note?

I have started this blog, not because I am a self help guru, but I have spent a fortune on self help products and wanted to save you a little work, so I will review and list the ones that I really like and think that they are worth a purchase, I will also be honest about the ones that did not really work for me. 

P.S. try just pushing the door today and see the difference it makes.