Going home for Christmas I have an 8 hour drive from Northern California to Southern California. I always use this time to load my mp3 player with a couple of audio books and try to soak in as much knowledge as possible on my boring drive down I-5. This time I decided to go back to a book I read right when I got out of college that changed my thought process about what I wanted to do. That book was the 4 hour work week by Tim Ferris. Most business books out there are just about making money but Tim has an interesting approach… Find a way to make money and not do all the work yourself! Yeah crazy idea, I thought so to when I first read the book but I have slowly gone from doing 100% of the work to just being a manager running multiple businesses with employees and freelancers doing most of the work.

I haven’t read this book in over 3 years but  have still retained a lot of the knowledge I got from the book. It was cool to be actually doing what Tim Ferris is talking about the second time I read the book. One of the biggest realizations I had in the past year was that I didn’t need to be working as much as I use to. I could simply work a few hours a week and use the rest of my time to find out what I wanted to do. This was actually a lot harder then I thought. School or your job usually takes up a huge portion of your time but with this cut down to a few hours a week I found myself just watching a bunch of movies and tv shows and not living my life to my full potential.

This last year has been the greatest year of my life. I partied and lived life to the extreme. I got into rock climbing and white water kayaking, I went on a week long backpacking trip to Canada, I jumped off cliffs into water, I had was in the best relationship of my life. Going back to 4 hour work week reminded me that this is why I do it. I free my time not so I can be lazy but so I have the ability to do those amazing things that most people never have the time for. Another great chapter Tim has is about taking a mini retirement and going to another country. He has lot’s of great info in his book and is one of those things I wish I did more. I did go to Japan and live there for three months two years back but since then I haven’t traveled as much as I liked. A book Tim recommends on the subject is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.

One area of the book you should avoid if you are going to be an entrepreneur is the part about how to work remotely at home for your job. These chapters are just about people who have a 9-5 that want to work from home and didn’t apply to me at all.

Click the images below to buy them on amazon.com both of them are under $20

You can also check out my other book recommendations here http://astore.amazon.com/howtostartaclothingcompany-20

So how can I apply this knowledge to my clothing company?

  • Pay designers to do your designs. mintees.com
  • Pay a screen printer to print the shirts. threadbird.com
  • Pay someone to fulfill your orders.
  • Pay someone for web design. doubledragonstudios.com
  • Pay/ get a fan to help write articles on your site

You can get someone to do pretty much everything for your clothing company.

After writing this article I ran across this other article by Chris Hardwick, that dude from singled out and so many other things. I saw him at the Unique LA Christmas show one year and got a pic with him and me with my power glove but I couldn’t find it. Instead you will just have to imagine me with a power glove, pink hat, and a fanny pack standing next to Chris. Anyways I thought this was a great article about his quest to accomplish more. Check out his article Diary of a Self-Help Dropout: Flirting With the 4-Hour Workweek.

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