I think 4HWW is definitely unrealistic for most Americans. His non-central points are apt (define what you want out of life, eliminate the pointless tasks and excess, etc.) but simplistic. I can’t imagine anyone finding anything in those areas to be a surprise — they’re the life coaching equivalent of diet advice telling you to eat less junk, eat healthier foods and get more activity — but his core focus on automation is not adaptable to the lives most people can lead.

Most people in a service-based profession (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, tutors, professors, fitness trainers, massage therapists, acupuncturists, professional organizers, artists, computer programmers, engineers, architects, and so on) can’t ever hope to treat the ongoing interactions with the people who pay, or might potentially pay, them as a nuisance. Thus, it’s not just the practices he advises, but the dripping arrogance with which he advises the reader, that really frustrated me.

I teach my clients all the time to respect their own boundaries and time parameters, and to not treat a ringing telephone like an emergency. But refusing to return phone calls at all and expecting everyone to communicate via email or not at all pretty much ensures that much of your clientele will go to the competition. Many professions have clientele requiring responses within a day, or are unable to email (the elderly, for example), or are auditory learners/processors. There are kernels of truth in each bit of advice, but at the macro level, the advice is unrealistic and, to my mind, foolish.

Ferriss makes a tad bit more sense for people who want to run a business selling a tangible product that can be marketed, sold and distributed en masse. But I can’t envision any way an average American, particularly one with family to support and with no bankroll, could have the financial, educational and situational advantages to do what he advises. Can some people do it? Sure.

But the vast majority of people with no business background who set out (with no education or training) to patent an invention or import a product from China, or whatever, do not easily reap rewards. They go bankrupt because they lack the understanding of accounting and tax laws and zoning rules and interstate commerce regulations and import tariffs do to what they envision, and initially lack the money to hire experts to guide them (and if the experts they wanted to hire also followed Ferriss’ advice, they’d have to wait for eventual emails from their virtual assistants in Bangalore to get back to them).

We can debate the ethics, logic and fiscal responsibility of outsourcing at the micro and macro levels. But there’s little debate regarding the workability of Ferriss’ advice for non-business owners.

I remember his recommendation that a typical cubicle-dweller might approach his supervisor to ask to work from home all or part of the time, then farm the actual work out to someone in Bangalore and pay a miniscule percentage of his salary to the person who actually does the work. I discussed this with many of my business-owning clients and every one considered it a violation of the (implied or actual) employment contract, and almost all considered it a violation of every principle of confidentiality.

Ferriss has a little realistic advice, but as a whole, I found him to be a bit of a huckster. He must know that only a tiny percentage of the masses who bought his book would never be able to do what he advised. He’s got every right to put his message out there, but I found The FHWW to be simplistic in its practical advice and impractical in approaching it’s central foundations. Financial success takes hard work. There are smarter ways to accomplish things, but there are no short-cuts.

Whew. Rant mode: OFF! Of course, the fun thing will be seeing what you think when you get all the way through it, Mike, or where Kevin thinks I’m being too cynical or uncomprehending.

Kevin, I imagine you and I could have some spirited discussions, as I read “The 4-Hour Work Week“ when it originally came out and found myself yelling aloud at Ferriss, as if his book were a sporting event and I took umbrage at his rulings. I’ve rarely had a visceral response to a financial book (as opposed to one with a political theme), but 4HWW definitely spurs debate.

Cheers~

Thanks again!

For me I need recurring bills/income that are the same every month and auto update. I then need the ability to manually enter in bills and income/deposits. Recurring bills need to be editable in case things are a little different one month…

So, I like the checkbook register style of viewing my account(s) and then a separate forecast view that shows me upto a year in advance what my balances would be based on my recurring entries or budget.

The forecast piece is crucial to me as I like to keep just enough funds in my checking account to cover the bills and then keep the rest in short and long term investments… If I see I am going to be a little short 3 weeks from now then I can plan to move money around ahead of time. On the flip side if I don’t need it for more than a week then I move to a savings account or other places.

I want to be able to log in today and see how I have kept to my budget (history) and then look to see how much money I have at any given point in the future. The ability to track multiple accounts would be important for me as well. I put ALL of my every day expenditures on a rewards credit card and just pay the bill off every month. I generally budget a certain amount for this card and “forecast” that amount.

Graphs would be really cool, but just having a place that is geared toward forecasting with a user friendly interface would be awesome!