Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Simply tosh July 23, 2008
I picked up this book after seeing so much about it in the press.
It's simply tosh.
He offers views on time management, outsourcing, automatic business processes, and travel, that any half-intelligent individual knows already...unless like Ferris you exhibit misanthropic tendencies, e.g. live on a low-information diet, never read a newspaper, only take emergency phone calls, avoid e-mail, divert customers to call centres and don't socialise or belong to any community.
If you want to run an online vitamin supplements business this book may hold some value. Otherwise, use your time more effectively, and save yourself some money. Take it from me.
The one star is only for including Thoreau's seminal work Walden: Or, Life in the Woods (Dover Thrift) on the reading list.
Now that is a book worth reading.
 Wealth v Lifestyle: What Do You Really Want? June 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The best thing about this book is that it questions the common desire to become a millionaire, and actually shows that this is used by many people as an excuse to delay living their dream lifestyle.
That in itself, for many, will make the book worth the price and the short time it takes to read.
This book focuses on creating an additional income largely through automated work and tasks that can be outsourced. This leaves you with a passive income and free time.
The book is not as detailed as it could be, and it does seem disjointed in places. There have also been doubts over how accurate Ferriss' claims are.
Don't let any of that put you off reading this book which could change the way you view work, money and lifestyle forever.
 Trivial Diversion.. June 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book is fun for the first 150 pages, then tails off into quite a tedious read. By then, all the book seems to be is famous quotes mixed with adverts for websites, glued together with vague case studies.
The chapter on faking expertise was very amusing, but I read the book so I guess the joke is on me.
It would serve as a holiday book.
 Great perspective on life June 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book and would recommend. I try to read these types of self help books periodically to give me another perspective on the corporate life I am currently living and this book certainly did that.
This book pulls together a number of different concepts (goals, being an entrepreneur and finding the right balance between work and pleasure) and argues that you don't have to wait until you have made stacks of cash to enjoy the life of the rich.
A book of two halves June 4, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
This seems to me to be a book of two halves. In the first half, Ferris gives a step by step action plan for eliminating non-essential work, outsourcing a lot of the remaining work, and giving a detailed blueprint for designing, test-running and developing an 'automated' on-line businesses (or businesses) - that is, a business whereby most of the functions are performed by outsourced companies, hence it is scaleable and allows the owner to keep only a very light hand on the tiller, through weekly or monthly reporting by the outsourcers. The idea is to free you up from the dull treadmill of routine work to allow you to focus on the important things in life now rather than waiting for some deferred gaol to be achieved (eg. retirement). I found this first half of the book excellent and have already started implementing his ideas - Ferris has definitely fired me up enough to give it a go.
The second part seems to focus mainly on what you should do with all the free time that you have managed to free up, and how to cope with the existential issues raised by having nothing to do. His solution is to travel extensively and keep learning (languages, martial arts, dance, etc), and so he gives a lot of tips on how to do that type of thing. It's quite a US-centric book and no doubt the concept of travelling widely is quite revolutionary to a lot of americans but I personally felt the second half of the book a bit irrelevent in the sense that a) I've been there/done that and b) I reckon I'm capable of finding my own life-affirming ways to make use of any free time the first half of the book creates for me.
But overall, I thought it was a great book, and I thought Ferris writes clearly and engagingly. I found it a gripping read and am feeling excited about implementing many of his ideas in the coming weeks.
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