4 Hour Rich Dad

The two most influential books that I have read in the last 5 years have been "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kyosaki and "The 4 Hour Work Week" by Timothy Ferris. Both books have been quoted numerous times by many experts and recently I have heard more than one business person (Kendra Todd, The Apprentice) and (Jay Van Orden, Internet Business Mastery)and Yanik Silver of www.InternetLifestyle.com talk about how influenced they were by these books.

The concepts behind Rich Dad explain that the Average Joe works for their money, while the rich let their money work for them. The rich invest in businesses, real estate and stocks and let their investments work for them 24 hours a day. You know your listening to a rich person speak when they talk about the money that they made "in their sleep, while on vacation". The Average Joe can only scratch his head when he hears this statement.

The 4 Hour Work Week has many great points and new takes on how to simplify your busy life while working less and making more. Sounds like a pretty good deal, huh? I like Tim's style as he works smart and plays hard. His list of exotic locations he has traveled to will make even the savvy traveler drool.

I took away the major points that everything you do should be scalable and that you should build a system (Automation) in business and always look to outsource. To be scalable is to not have a business where you have to work 20 hours a day to make it work. Instead you have to delgate and hire out others to work and make the business function on a day to day basis (hence the 4 hour work week). The other is the automation meaning a method to create management free money and eliminate yourself from the wheel. By outsourcing, the book explains the concepts of hiring others to do the task that are not your most productive use of your time. If your not great at HTML code, hire someone else to do it (through a virtual assistant in India). If you are better at selling product but suck at copy writing and research - then hire it out. Save the most productive and money making things for yourself to do and get someone else to do the rest.

The final takeaways I have are that I intend to work less, have my money work more for me, and spend more time with my family and friends in far away exotic locations (can you say Sayulita, Mexico?). Ciao. By Brad McLeod

You can reach Brad McLeod at mbmcleod@mindspring.com if you have comments or would like to trade notes on travel, family, financial freedom and lifestyle.