Why you should have a 4-hour workweek

We live in a world where we are measured by the hours and years we put in at a conventional company but, strangely, we admire, model, and study individuals who have “made it” by not following that same path. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?

Take Sir Richard Branson of Virgin-everything fame. Sir Richard never held a Monday-Friday, 8-5 job working for anyone other than himself. Now, I am not knocking conventional work schedules but it makes me wonder why we humans are so eager to adopt the 40-hour work week, sometimes in environments that absolutely stifle ingenuity, and then chalk that up as being a measure of success. We’ve got people being catapulted head-long toward retirement, without so much as giving a sideways glance to what’s going on around them, and not even really remembering the trip. It’s a lot like taking the bullet train in Japan. You’ll get where you’re going in a hurry but chances are you ain’t gonna’ remember anything you saw en route. Is this what we’ve become?

However, there is a bright spot here even if it seems its all doom and gloom. I once heard that whenever there is a crisis, money changes hands. I mentioned this before in another blog but I think now, more than ever, the present state of unemployment, etc. can actually result in some ingenious people turning this to their advantage. Timothy Ferris has a whole new take on this. For those of you not familiar with Timothy Ferris, he wrote the interesting book, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich. A quick perusal of the back jacket cover claims: “Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan – there is no need to wait and every reason not to” and “How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week.”

I once worked for a company where my boss told another VP (actual conversation): “If Kathy never worked another day this year (it was April or May), she would still have exceeded her annual quota.” At the time, I felt pleased with myself, but then I started thinking. However, instead of thinking, if I had already earned more than what was expected or needed, why couldn’t I take off the rest of the year and travel, write a book, sleep in … no, the thoughts went to, I can do more work and then once or twice a year take a week off to recover from all the hard work. If I can accomplish more in ¼ of the time it takes some people to accomplish, and if I am satisfied with those earnings, why not take off? But that old Puritanical work ethic thing keeps getting in the way of taking time in life to enjoy, well … life.

I think the big question here is: Is there a real reason you, specifically, need to be working in a structured environment with set days and hours? I emphasize the word “real” because for those who have “made it”, they don’t seem to view ‘work’ the way most of us do.

"Perfection is not when there is more to add, but no more to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)

1 simple thought that will change your life

Something strange happened on the way to giving a motivational talk. I was back in my hometown of Southern California and getting ready to deliver a talk to a group of de-motivated salespeople. Their company had suffered some bad press and the sales staff was, to say the least, devastated. And it showed in their performance.

So, there I was, in my hotel room, with the television on in the background as I went over the talk in my head. Something on TV caught my attention. It was a commercial for the annual fair at the Pomona, California fairgrounds. As a kid in elementary school, at the start of each school year, the children were given a free ticket to the fair. Listening to the commercial took me back to that time and I recalled how I couldn't contain my excitement. It then struck me how, from just the mere mention of the fair, my body was actually responding as though I was, once again, 7 or 8 years old and anticipating going to the fair.

By the time I got to where I was delivering the talk, I realized I needed to take a different approach other than what I had originally planned. I began the talk by asking everyone to close their eyes and recall the first time they had fallen in love; be it with another person, puppy, or goldfish. For the following few minutes, the faces of the people in the audience began to soften and lighten. Some even smiled. The point of the exercise was to demonstrate that their minds could not tell the difference between something that happened at another time or the present moment. Their entire physiology changed just at the thought of something wonderful.

This can go another way as well. Think of when something terrible happened and it will be as though you are experiencing that all over again.

We all have memories of when we were completely brilliant, such as writing a flawless report, giving an inspiring presentation, or making something with our own two hands that was sheer perfection. Admittedly, for some (a lot?) of us, these moments may be few and far between. I think what happens though, especially when we are uncertain about what we want or feel there is strong competition, we conjure those memories from the past where things did not go well. This is a real problem because then your mind and body will start mimicking the past. The body language, the searching for the right words, the mind-freeze, or whatever else that took place that made things turn out not so great reemerges.

If you had the choice, and you do, to cement in your mind those moments where everything you did as though they had been written in the stars or the times when you struggled, stumbled, or even fell, as a way to produce the feelings you need to take hold of your career or do your best work, is there any reason to choose the latter?

The following year after that talk in So Cal, I ran into one of the people who had been in attendance. She told me that prior to the session, she had perceived that prospective customers were aware of the troubles of her company. Her sales presentations had been full of apologies and offering things she wouldn’t ordinarily give away just to get the sale but even that wasn’t working. After the talk, she realized she was projecting insecurity to prospects that she felt as a result of the company’s rather public troubles. She learned that in the majority of cases, many prospects weren’t even aware of the company troubles. She told me that applying what I taught her had changed her life.

Though that particular company's sales staff was contending with real some hurdles, it is not unlike what many people go through on a regular basis. We tell ourselves we can’t possibly get the career we want because we don’t have enough education, the right skill set, connections, too old, too young, too experienced, not enough experience, it’s too hard … a million things that chatter on endlessly in our heads but – and this is a biggie – when you do this, your body, in response, will not disappoint and will put each and every one of your felt emotions on display for the entire world to see.

So, do yourself a favor and choose only the good thoughts.