You ever know anyone who lives the 4 Hour Work Week lifestyle? Like, travels world & works remotely?

I live the lifestyle you're talking about.

What would you like to know?
 
Tim Ferriss was a client of mine for a while and his whole 4 hour work week is just marketing bullshit. He spends 4 hours a day alone whining up and down the chain of command to anyone he hires trying to get out of scope work for free. I used to respect the dude, but after a few years working with him, 99.9% of what he says and peddles is straight bullshit.

I work remote and make pretty great money, but between the 9-5 and side businesses, I work about 50-60 hours a week while traveling and haven't met anyone at a high-end level that puts in much less time, if not more.
 
I've been working remotely for a few years and i like it, i prefer it to the 9 - 5. The best part for me is enjoying the work, not feeling like it's a burden. The worst part is that it is unstable, you have to manage and plan for everything yourself. Unless you become part of a team of some kind, which i might soon.

It's not great money, I work about 30 hours a week. I could make more by adding more hours but i dont really need that. Depends on your priorities, if you want to live a cushy lifestyle it'll be a lot harder to do working remotely.
 
blurple said:
Tim Ferriss was a client of mine for a while and his whole 4 hour work week is just marketing bullshit. He spends 4 hours a day alone whining up and down the chain of command to anyone he hires trying to get out of scope work for free. I used to respect the dude, but after a few years working with him, 99.9% of what he says and peddles is straight bullshit.

I work remote and make pretty great money, but between the 9-5 and side businesses, I work about 50-60 hours a week while traveling and haven't met anyone at a high-end level that puts in much less time, if not more.
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Tim ferris appears on a lot of podcasts a frequent. He has some interesting ideas, the way he tries to reinvent how we work and live. But i've always felt like there's something off or unauthentic about him. Unfortunately you get that feel from a lot of people in this space.
 
blurple said:
Tim Ferriss was a client of mine for a while and his whole 4 hour work week is just marketing bullshit. He spends 4 hours a day alone whining up and down the chain of command to anyone he hires trying to get out of scope work for free. I used to respect the dude, but after a few years working with him, 99.9% of what he says and peddles is straight bullshit.

I work remote and make pretty great money, but between the 9-5 and side businesses, I work about 50-60 hours a week while traveling and haven't met anyone at a high-end level that puts in much less time, if not more.
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this makes a lot of sense.

Even when I quit "working" in my 30s it sure seemed like I was busy doing a lot of stuff that seemed a lot like work.
 
I'm buying out the company that I work for. Until I pay back the loan that I get, I'll probably continue to work close to 40 hours a week. After that, I'll probably only drop in for a couple hours per day. I don't know how you could really get by with only 4 hours a week.
 
Yes I think. 3 people.

1. Girl with a huge safety net, she writes poetry books and joins programs that have her move around. I believe she's in India right now. Really nice.

2. Cam girl. Hella bad. She doesn't pay for shit, ever. She works a couple hours a week diddling her doodle, and her life is so easy you can see the search for meaning in her day to day life.

3. Old homie. Like, we were 8 when we we met. Dude kinda became big shit in a big city selling pot. He kept investing that money into his capital, got a couple side businesses to make sense of his income, and eventually that state legalized it. Now he makes a couple phone calls a day and everything runs itself, and he has enough connections that he's basically set for life. We talked numbers and he's banking about 200k a month before costs. He doesn't have to leave his house.
 
Soma said:
I live the lifestyle you're talking about.

What would you like to know?
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I think the question everyone has is, where does the money come from.

Back to my Banff days my gf and I ran into many 'world-trotting backpackers". Some of them were legit and would camp in mamny places and try to do odd jobs for money but most were posers with a backstop provided by their parents. The worst of that bunch were two australian chicks trying hard to look like they were roughing it. They were at the same youth hostel we were at. One morning I'm waiting for my gf and these two posers are using the phone to call long distance and they pull platinum AmEx cards -- which at that time had $50,000/month limits IIRC.
 
therealdope said:
I think the question everyone has is, where does the money come from.

Back to my Banff days my gf and I ran into many 'world-trotting backpackers". Some of them were legit and would camp in mamny places and try to do odd jobs for money but most were posers with a backstop provided by their parents. The worst of that bunch were two australian chicks trying hard to look like they were roughing it. They were at the same youth hostel we were at. One morning I'm waiting for my gf and these two posers are using the phone to call long distance and they pull platinum AmEx cards -- which at that time had $50,000/month limits IIRC.
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You're right on with your observation. The VAST majority of "digital nomads" are broke and will never make it. They spend all their money and go back home in 6-12 months.

My money comes from my website (outdoors website - hiking, camping, etc).

I spent 3 years busting my ass to build the site and grow the revenue/profit (this was in addition to having a full time job). In 2 years I was making more from my site than I was with my salary. Thought about quitting job but decided to stay put another year to continue growing the site. Great decision.

After 3 years I was making about 3x my salary from my site (and it continues to grow each month). That's when I decided it was time. Quit my job and now work on my site to keep growing it while traveling where/when I want, doing what I want...total freedom and peace of mind.

It's fantastic. Haha. And ANYONE can do it. It's all about consistency.
 
Not 4 hours per week, but I do know some RNs that work in the Bay Area a lot of 12 hour shifts and then take several weeks off. Some even live in out states because they make way more money working less than working FT in their town. I also know a physician that takes several months off per year. Even took 6 months off once. In terms of remote working I know a few in IT that does it. I really don't know how much they actually work though, but most of it is from home. My cousin's husband was doing it for a long time until he took an offer from Nvidia. I'm guessing it was a very good offer that was hard to resist since now he has to go in to work daily and usually work 40 hrs per week. He does IT Security type work.

If I was a ER physician I would consider working two 12 hr shifts per week back to back then take the rest of the week off. Assuming I can make $250+/hr with benefits
 
blurple said:
Tim Ferriss was a client of mine for a while and his whole 4 hour work week is just marketing bullshit. He spends 4 hours a day alone whining up and down the chain of command to anyone he hires trying to get out of scope work for free. I used to respect the dude, but after a few years working with him, 99.9% of what he says and peddles is straight bullshit.

I work remote and make pretty great money, but between the 9-5 and side businesses, I work about 50-60 hours a week while traveling and haven't met anyone at a high-end level that puts in much less time, if not more.
Click to expand...

Just curous, what kind of service did you provide Tim?
 
Soma said:
You're right on with your observation. The VAST majority of "digital nomads" are broke and will never make it. They spend all their money and go back home in 6-12 months.

My money comes from my website (outdoors website - hiking, camping, etc).

I spent 3 years busting my ass to build the site and grow the revenue/profit (this was in addition to having a full time job). In 2 years I was making more from my site than I was with my salary. Thought about quitting job but decided to stay put another year to continue growing the site. Great decision.

After 3 years I was making about 3x my salary from my site (and it continues to grow each month). That's when I decided it was time. Quit my job and now work on my site to keep growing it while traveling where/when I want, doing what I want...total freedom and peace of mind.

It's fantastic. Haha. And ANYONE can do it. It's all about consistency.
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Thats really cool! I've got a blog of my own that I'm struggling with. I have a few questions (if you don't mind answering):
1) How much content did you have on your website before you decided to start monetising it?
2) Do you still regularly update the site with fresh content?
3) I'm personally having a really rough time managing a full time job, training and working on my site. How did you balance life and your website?
 
Been my lifestyle for the past 7 years or so.

edit - i work more than 4 hours a week though. if you want to do better than just survive, you got to work well. doesn't mean u need to do 40+ hour weeks, but you got to be efficient and driven when you work and you can't get complacent.

fun story. i used to make a shitload of money with affiliate marketing in the travel niche. I made a lot through Agoda specifically. They had a 30 day cookie for affiliates with generous percentages, which is how they grew to dominate asia. After they won the market, they changed their affiliate program to a 24 hour cookie, which decimated my affiliate income.

business (especially tech business online) is ALWAYS changing and it changes fucking fast. you might find a great way to make money and sit around working 4 hours a week. then the next month, that gravy train is fucking gone. So thats why you need to diversify your income and keep hustling even when you got a good thing going.
 
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VanteMMA said:
Thats really cool! I've got a blog of my own that I'm struggling with. I have a few questions (if you don't mind answering):
1) How much content did you have on your website before you decided to start monetising it?
2) Do you still regularly update the site with fresh content?
3) I'm personally having a really rough time managing a full time job, training and working on my site. How did you balance life and your website?
Click to expand...

I'm happy to answer your questions.
  1. I had about 30 - 40 articles on my site before monetizing. I wanted to make sure I had enough content up that I'd get approved by the various networks. I first used Adsense and native ads (Content.Ad, Taboola, etc), then added Amazon (also tested a bunch of other networks and monetization types as well).

  2. Normally yes. The past couple weeks I've been traveling a bit so haven't updated it much though. Went to Malaysia for a few days last week - Kuala Lumpur and Melacca. I'm in Thailand now and in a couple hours I'll be traveling to Chang Rai and staying there for a few days. Anyway, when the writers finish the articles and queue them up, I review them and publish them to the website - Usually I'll publish about 1 - 4 articles per day.

  3. I didn't balance it. I went balls to the wall. I sold 95% of my stuff, moved out of my nice apartment and moved back in with my parents for a year (increasing my morning commute time but about 45 mins). I slept in my 8 year old brothers bed (I was 36 at the time). I woke up at 4:45am every morning, commuted to work, then worked on my website on my office computer until my job started at 8am. Fortunately, my boss would normally come in around 11am so I was usually working on website until he came in. I'd sneak times throughout the day to work on it as well.

    Every day after work I'd go straight to the library, work on my website until the library closed at 8pm. Then I'd drive 60 mins home, go directly to bed, wake up at 4:45am and repeat. I also went to the gym 3 days a week. On those days I'd hit the gym after work then go straight to the library till close, then home. On the weekends I'd wake up at 8am, go straight to a coffee shop and work on my website until the coffee shop closed at 9pm (did this on both Saturday and Sunday). I'd visit my best friend once a month and crash at his house for the night. But other than that, I worked as described above 7 days week, nonstop.

    After exactly 1 year, I moved out of parents place and lived in my car for a little over a month. During which time I still worked on my website as I said above. Then I found a way to sneak past the alarm at work. So from then on I snuck into work at night and slept in the storage closet. I slept/lived in the storage closet for 2 years and still kept working on my website as per above. It was rough. hah. But as mentioned in the previous post, it was all worth it. Now life is just beautiful, hah. I love it.

    Hope that helps.
 
Soma said:
I'm happy to answer your questions.
  1. I had about 30 - 40 articles on my site before monetizing. I wanted to make sure I had enough content up that I'd get approved by the various networks. I first used Adsense and native ads (Content.Ad, Taboola, etc), then added Amazon (also tested a bunch of other networks and monetization types as well).

  2. Normally yes. The past couple weeks I've been traveling a bit so haven't updated it much though. Went to Malaysia for a few days last week - Kuala Lumpur and Melacca. I'm in Thailand now and in a couple hours I'll be traveling to Chang Rai and staying there for a few days. Anyway, when the writers finish the articles and queue them up, I review them and publish them to the website - Usually I'll publish about 1 - 4 articles per day.

  3. I didn't balance it. I went balls to the wall. I sold 95% of my stuff, moved out of my nice apartment and moved back in with my parents for a year (increasing my morning commute time but about 45 mins). I slept in my 8 year old brothers bed (I was 36 at the time). I woke up at 4:45am every morning, commuted to work, then worked on my website on my office computer until my job started at 8am. Fortunately, my boss would normally come in around 11am so I was usually working on website until he came in. I'd sneak times throughout the day to work on it as well.

    Every day after work I'd go straight to the library, work on my website until the library closed at 8pm. Then I'd drive 60 mins home, go directly to bed, wake up at 4:45am and repeat. I also went to the gym 3 days a week. On those days I'd hit the gym after work then go straight to the library till close, then home. On the weekends I'd wake up at 8am, go straight to a coffee shop and work on my website until the coffee shop closed at 9pm (did this on both Saturday and Sunday). I'd visit my best friend once a month and crash at his house for the night. But other than that, I worked as described above 7 days week, nonstop.

    After exactly 1 year, I moved out of parents place and lived in my car for a little over a month. During which time I still worked on my website as I said above. Then I found a way to sneak past the alarm at work. So from then on I snuck into work at night and slept in the storage closet. I slept/lived in the storage closet for 2 years and still kept working on my website as per above. It was rough. hah. But as mentioned in the previous post, it was all worth it. Now life is just beautiful, hah. I love it.

    Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Thank you!

I'm gonna take a screenshot of your post and read it every time I feel too tired / lazy / sleepy to work on my website.
 
pookiyama said:
Yes I think. 3 people.

1. Girl with a huge safety net, she writes poetry books and joins programs that have her move around. I believe she's in India right now. Really nice.

2. Cam girl. Hella bad. She doesn't pay for shit, ever. She works a couple hours a week diddling her doodle, and her life is so easy you can see the search for meaning in her day to day life.

3. Old homie. Like, we were 8 when we we met. Dude kinda became big shit in a big city selling pot. He kept investing that money into his capital, got a couple side businesses to make sense of his income, and eventually that state legalized it. Now he makes a couple phone calls a day and everything runs itself, and he has enough connections that he's basically set for life. We talked numbers and he's banking about 200k a month before costs. He doesn't have to leave his house.
Click to expand...

this makes a lot of sense. i know a bunch of people who don't work and many of them fall into category 1^^^ above or they actively invest.
 
Soma said:
You're right on with your observation. The VAST majority of "digital nomads" are broke and will never make it. They spend all their money and go back home in 6-12 months.

My money comes from my website (outdoors website - hiking, camping, etc).

I spent 3 years busting my ass to build the site and grow the revenue/profit (this was in addition to having a full time job). In 2 years I was making more from my site than I was with my salary. Thought about quitting job but decided to stay put another year to continue growing the site. Great decision.

After 3 years I was making about 3x my salary from my site (and it continues to grow each month). That's when I decided it was time. Quit my job and now work on my site to keep growing it while traveling where/when I want, doing what I want...total freedom and peace of mind.

It's fantastic. Haha. And ANYONE can do it. It's all about consistency.
Click to expand...

This is completely believably, anything worth doing - and creating a life worth living - takes a lot of work.

I have no idea who Tim Ferris is but i bet his schtick is making money trying to convince people that he has magic fairy pixie dust that allows him to work 4hrs a week without the back stop of money from someone who worked their ass off.
 
@Soma

Are you from San Francisco and live "South of Market"? Just curious about your ID.
 
Hi new poster here. I actually signed up as I have a lot of free time and I enjoy the Mayberry section and have been reading it for a while but decided to give my input.

I actually live this lifestyle currently. I have my own tech business that runs itself and I have repeat clients. So unless I want to make more money I don't have to work and can wait for the next PO. I make 6 figures easily BUT my cost of living is very high as I live a costly life. I am not a saver who plays it safe for a rainy day.

Having said that I've done the traveling, living in (Hamptons, Newport RI, LA, etc all in the US none outside), gambling, sex, sleep.

I have very little stress but boredom sets in. Everyone else is working so it's not like I have people to hang out with who have the freedom I do.

I've never read the tim ferris book but initially I thought it was a sales pitch and not feasible but now I know it can be done.

It has to be in my opinion high tech and not service related, very few employees to manage(I have one backing me up), one that you are not tied to geography where you have to be at a certain location to assist your clients.

Before anyone calls me fake, I have no reason to lie about this. I'm not trying to impress anyone, not looking for business on here, or to be one of those internet braggarts which we all know all too well.

I'm a happy person so part of that chase for happiness is not working a lot of hours and not having a boss. I'm not married btw
 
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