To close out the week here at Effing The Dog™, I thought I'd post the second in The EffTD™ Interview Series, which is with Brick Andrews of The 4 Hour work Week Journal blog. He's also fairly new to the blogging scene (otherwise known as the blogosphere, because it's like an atmosphere filled with blogs), which means he needs the interview as much as I do.
Brick: First of all, I want to thank you for having me on the EffTD Interview Series. To be honest, I have been EffTDing™ all day so far, and as you promise on your site, the system is remarkably easy to implement. As for being a "life scientist", Wikipedia (no one who is even remotely web 2.0 like me uses encyclopedias) defines life science as the study of Biology. I am not a biologist. I would consider myself more a student of the personal transformation movement – basically I am on a quest to enhance the quality of my life. After working in information technology for over 15 years, getting married and having 1.4 kids, I have settled into a salaried, suburban, 60 hour workweek malaise. Thankfully I don't have a dog or own an SUV, so there is still hope for me. Anyway, while I am thankful for many blessings, this kind existence can be a little unfulfilling and I am on a mission to rectify that.
Me: So you've taken it upon yourself to find out if all of the, and you'll excuse the expression "sillosophy" (which is a hybrid of the words silly and philosophy) is actually going to work in some form or another. What have you discovered thus far?
Brick: While I am looking at multiple "lifehacking" schemes, I am currently trying to implement the secrets of the New Rich as described in Timothy Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek in my own life (which, as you can hopefully tell, inspired the title of my blog). Basically, the philosophy (or sillosophy!) is that we should abandon the "deferred life plan" where we work our asses off in the prime of our lives, save as much as we can and then retire – a plan most of us have unconsciously bought into. According to Ferriss, this work-hard-now-enjoy-life-later plan is a "socially reinforced illusion". Life does not have to be this hard – instead we should master time and mobility and create fulfilling lifestyles now. Ferriss claims that by eliminating non value add work, and by outsourcing or otherwise automating various tasks, he can work four hours a week and at the same time be completely mobile to travel the world, meet interesting people, and kickbox them. I know what you're thinking – why work four hours and not three hours a week? Seriously though, when you are working 60+ hours a week, a 4-hour workweek sounds pretty good.
However, I am a skeptic (I didn't even believe blue M&M's existed until I saw them with my own eyes). I decided that I would test the propositions set forth in The 4-Hour Workweek and similar lifehacking philosophies and keep track of my progress on-line. There are, of course, a few things regarding The 4-Hour Workweek that have concerned me. One is that Ferriss was already making a good deal of money before preaching his work-less, live-more message. Its seems to me that he was at least monetarily rich *before* he reduced his working time down to four hours weekly, which suggests that one might be more successful in implementing the 4-Hour Workweek if one were starting from a position of rather decent fiscal means. In fairness, Ferriss suggests how we might create self running businesses that will supply us with lots of cashflow, but in a way, he sometimes comes off sounding a bit like Don Lapre (I am dating myself, but this is the guy from the early 90's with the late night infomercials claiming that by placing "tiny classified ads" in newspapers he was able to make $50,000 per week from his one bedroom apartment). Also, while he goes to great pains to explain how his message applies to salaried employees and people with kids, in the end, he started from a position of running his own business and he does not have kids. I don't mean him any disrespect – I'm just saying!
All that being said, Ferriss does deliver a very important message, and he articulates it well: we have a choice in how we live our lives. Sometimes you have to step back and ask some very fundamental questions. Why am I waiting until I am 65 to retire? Why am I only taking two weeks vacation per year? Is what I am doing with my life really fulfilling? Are there other options? Sometimes the biggest transformations occur by asking some fairly simple questions about what we tacitly assume is true or right. Ferriss makes a good point here when it comes to lifestyle, and no one can take that away from him. He also offers advice that can be implemented by anyone, right away. I have already implemented an "information diet" and restricted the checking of email to twice per day. As a general rule, I don't go out of my way to answer the telephone and only check voicemail a couple times a day. Believe it or not, these little things have been absolutely liberating. Also, when it comes to work, my first question now becomes: "do I even need to do this?" And if the answer is yes I ask: "can someone else do this for me?". The quality of my life has definitely improved, so Ferriss gets some credit for that! I am easily down to a 59-hour workweek!
Me: Have you tried other self-improvement porgrams? Did you take anything remotely significant away from them, or did you just run away from them as fast as you could?
Brick: I really like GTD and the whole lifehacking/personal productivity genre. There is nothing wrong with working and living smarter instead of harder. I was into Anthony Robbins for a while. Anthony Robbins has more teeth than anyone else I know. His whole thing was laced with NLP, which seemed very interesting, but I could never quite follow it. He is a great speaker, however, and very entertaining to watch (he did a TED talk recently). I also studied meditation. At one point I attained enlightenment but momentarily left the state of Nirvana to get a beverage. Upon returning I had insufficient funds for the cover charge.
Believe it or not, some of the best self-improvement material I ever got was from following "social dynamics" and the "seduction community", which for lack of better terms, is the study of becoming a great "pickup artist". For some background, Author Neil Strauss documents his experiences with the seduction community in the best selling book "The Game". It taught me a lot about self-confidence (few genuinely have it). Besides helping one meet beautiful women, I think self-confidence allows one to be a little more in control of their life and opens up a lot of possibilities. Whatever you do, don't tell my wife about this last little bit, ok?
Me: That being said, why have a system of productivity in place at all?
Brick: As Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, "A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push." Now I admit, I just quoted Wittgenstein so I could appear more intelligent. But seriously, I think we are limited, imprisoned if you will, by what our current means can accomplish. Anything that can expand our means (like a new system of productivity) opens up new possibilies, and I think possibility itself is often what fulfillment is built on. Holy s^%! that's deep.
Me: Yeah, I love that guy's symphonies. So, you're relatively new to the blog game – at least with this particular blog. Why blog about your experience?
Brick: It's a long shot, but I am hoping for a movie deal.
Me: What would you say to Timothy Ferriss if you met him – other than asking him to finance a movie deal for you?
Brick: Hmmm, maybe something like "Hi Tim, how's it going?". I am not necessarily known for thinking on my feet, so I am quite sure I would waste such a glorious opportunity is just such a fashion. Maybe I would ask him for his advice on a very specific challenge I am having related to his philosophy. Maybe I would just say "thanks for the book!".
Me: Would you ever consider writing a book yourself?
Brick: You know, despite my enthusiasm for all this lifehacking and lifestyle transformation stuff, sometimes I think the way we traditionally just do things in business, in life, etc. is actually best. I mean maybe we are sometimes living a "socially reinforced illusion", but what if the illusion is a nice one or seems to make life that much more worth living? Seomtimes, we don't need to "think outside the box". Therefore, I think I would call my book "Thinking Inside the Box". It's good inside the box.
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Anthony Robbins really does have a lot of teeth. I mean really.. it’s amazing. Sometimes I like the box too. The box frequently comes with a toy and fries in it.