This is day 13 (well in truth waaayyyy longer, somewhere between 4-6 months now but my 13th post) of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.

First of All

My potential cash flow muse, Conversations with Podcasting Gurus came out yesterday. I have an early bird special for the next 3 days to encourage folks to support the product so check it out by visiting the Conversations with Podcasting Gurus (& Bonus Quick Start Guide) Sales Page and ordering today.

Now onto the scheduled programming.

The Video

Click on the Video to Play "How I Tested My Cash Flow Muses"

To watch this video on Youtube click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYTVt1Zo_8I

The Slide Presentation

You can also access the slide presentation using the link below:
How to Test a Cashflow Muse Slide Presentation hosted by Sliderocket

Websites and Resources Mentioned

1) Google Adwords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

2) www.Ask.com

3) Keyword Discovery Tool: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

4) Perry Marshall’s 5 Day Free Adword Course

Any questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below so we can begin a dialogue on how we can all create cash flow muses.

Have a day more beautiful than the muse that inspired it,

Mwangi

This is day 12 (well in truth much longer, probably 3-4 months now but my 12th post) of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.

In the previous edition, we discovered the niche that I had selected: the bloggers and podcasting niche. On this episode, I walk you through how I selected what products to test and what ultimately got tested.

It All Started with Adsense

Around the time that I was going through the 4 hour work week journey, I was also at the stage where I was about to begin optimizing my Google Adsense on this site, theDisplacedAfrican.com.

For the unitiated, or for those who hate fluff talk and want to know exactly what I mean, optimization means:

The process of getting the maximum results possible for the minimum amounts of input.

In the case of Adsense this meant changing the position, font, colours, shapes etc etc of my Google adsense untilI had ads which were consistently getting clicked on the most and therefore bringing the website the most money.

Necessity is the Mother of All Invention, Innovation and a Whole Lotta Businesses

I realized that nowhere on the web did there exist a guide that taught solo Wordpress bloggers such as myself how we could optimize our Adsense step by step. Specifically I wanted information on:

a) Just what ad blocks I should test and what elements I should test out of the infinite number of elements that can be tested.

b) How to automate the process.

c) A step by step by step guide.

The only guy I could find who was doing this was Joel Comm, but I felt that Joel was far too general, didn’t focus on Wordpress, didn’t have a system of automating it.

A Little A-ha Moment

So I thought to myself, well since I am a Wordpress blogger, a graduate of Blog Mastermind and am kinda frustrated with just how to optimize my Adsense, surely other people must be having this problem too. So, after deliberating with Yaro Starak my fellow Blog Mastermind members, I thought:

Killing 2 Birds with One Stones

Why not go onto a site like Rentacoder and get a coder to:

1) Research the best performing ad blocks for Wordpress blogs.

2) Discover how to automatically test the infinite number of success elements.

3) Automate the process

4) Optimize my Google Adsense

5) Record all that into a book

6) Include a step by step guide so people can do the same

7) Mint money off of that.

Test Number One

And so, I went to Rentacoder and got a coder started on optimizing my Google Adsense and recording the results while I went onto performing research to see if any self-hosting Wordpress blogger wanted to learn how to make the most money they could from their blog’s Adsense.

Tools Used

I made use of 3 tools to do my research:

1) Google Keyword Tool

2) Ask.com

3) Free search term suggestion tool which I first heard about from the Andrew and Daryl Grant website

Quick Digression

Andrew and Daryl Grant are a couple who made $250,000 in their first year as Internet marketers selling ebooks.

When you visit and opt-in to the site , they give you FREE, clear step by step instructions on how they did this.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you see yourself making your online fortunes via ebooks (sadly I don’t make a dime in affiliate commissions ofF this recommendation, but it definitely still stands).

The Research Began

And the results were not good. There were no people searching for information on how to optimize Google Adsense for self-hosted Wordpress blogs. I didn’t get much better results when I tried variations and creative ways to express the term.

And So I Thought

Let me put that to the side and I will try to retail “My Adsense Guide” later using my existing connections in the Internet marketing world once that is ready.

Definitely not enough demand for my maiden voyage, though.

I wanted my maiden voyage to be an area where there is high demand, and hopefully an area in which I have expertise.

Outsourcing

Next, I moved on to outsourcing. I have been outsourcing all sorts of things for the last 8 months. A lot of the work that I do is actually dependent on outsourcing i.e. someone gives me a job to do, I outsource some or all of it while I supervise. So, I know quite a bit about outsourcing using sites like Elace, Rentacoder and GetaFreelancer.

Keyword Research Take 2

My problem when I went to perform keyword research is I didn’t know how to narrow down from the HUUUGGGGE topic of outsourcing to what it is I do:

Outsource Internet marketing related processes using freelance sites such as Get a Freelancer, Rent a Coder and Elance

Well Around That Time

I got one or two questions on my blog about podcasting. Me thought, why not?

KeyWord Research

Specific enough: Check =  When you search for podcasting you are looking for information on a very specific process known as podcasting as opposed to a more broad category like content creation or audio production.

Traffic= Check = The search traffic for terms related to podcasting were enough to at least give it a shot.

Experience and Expertise = I have my own podcast and have been podcasting for 5 months. I also have some contacts in the Internet marketing world who I knew could probably connect me to other experts. I am also part of the Blog Mastermind where we have our fair share of podcasters. So it definitely seemed like a good bet.

Keyword Research

So I set up the site www.mypodcastingtutor.com, began working on my email autoresponder sequence which includes content rich Camtasia videos. (I currently have 7 emails that go out over a month)

And I began my test.

In the next edition, of my 4 hour work week journey, I walk you through my testing process.

How goes your journey? Well, I hope?

Mwangi

This is day 10 of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.

You will notice that by this point, I am writing less and less about the book and getting straight into the Questions and Actions. Please read the articles that came before this one, listen to the audios and videos I have embedded in those articles or buy the book to fully understand the logic behind what I am doing here.

VA is short for “Virtual assistant”.

Some Security Measures When Working with VAs

These are for those people who might be scared and/or paranoid about working with virtual assistants who would have access to their delicate information. A couple of quick tips if you work on blogs and websites, like I do.

1) Create unique username and password for VAs to access your website:

A friend of mine is currently paying me to help him create and optimize his blog ( If you are interested in this service, please send an email to masmilele@thedisplacedafrican.com ). He is the person who best taught me this lesson.

We hired a technician from rent a coder to take the domain name that he had already bought and create a Wordpress blog from it and install some plugins and software into the Wordpress blog.

Obviously, this would involve the technician logging into my friend’s hosting and domain account. However my friend is quite the risk manager. Scared that the technician may play around with his domain settings, he went the extra mile and created a limited authority account for the technician that has access to his domain and hosting account.

For those of you working with people on your Wordpress blog, its possible to create such accounts as well.

From now on, every time I work with a VA, for the next redesign of the site for example, I will create a brand new username and password for their use.

2) Use credit cards instead of debit cards: It’s easier to erase huge credit charges instead of debit charges.

Questions and Actions: Outsourcing Life

1) Get yourself an assistant even if you don’t need one:

I have already assigned more than a dozen tasks to VAs in the USA, India, Bangalore and oddly enough, Baghdad, Iraq (more power to Iraqis if they actually have Internet now).

As a matter of fact, there is one task I can think of that needs a VA’s touch right now……..look out for an article coming out soon that will have “the VA’s touch”.

2) Identify your top 5 time consuming nonwork tasks and 5 personal tasks you could assign for sheer fun:

Hmm this one will be tough considering I spend so much time online But if I were to outsource more than I do already, here are a couple of things I would consider outsourcing:

i) Find the absolute cheapest ticket to fly to Kenya over the next 6 months: I recently created a video over the course of about a week where I tried to see if I could get cheap airplane tickets to allow me to visit Kenya sometime this year using the site rentacoder.

It gives some helpful tips of how one might be able to save hundreds if not thousands of dollars on flights from Melbourne, Australia to Nairobi, Kenya. I will release this as its own independent article because I think cheap airfare is always worth discussing for immigrants.

ii) Buy me a very very cheap pair of size 10.5 sneakers: I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in a very long time, but its quite difficult to get a nice, comfortable pair of sneakers that doesn’t wear out quickly at a cheap price.

iii) Figure out the best place and price for me to sell my car: My car is at the end of its life and I want to find out how I can sell either the parts or the entire car for the best price.

iv) Perform most of the research necessary for me to create my cash flow muse: This will make a lot more sense once we get into the chapter on automation

v) You know what Tim did it, me thinks I might outsource my dating : Hmm, now should I outsource the search for dates or just the organizing of dates?I will let this marinate in my mind. It’s definitely something that I would do. I think the pure fun and novelty of having “my assistant” call a girl to confirm plans I have with her would make my day, and hers, pretty memorable.

Onwards and upwards to infinity and beyond,

Mwangi

]]> http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/07/my-4-hour-work-week-journey-outsourcing-your-life/feed/ 0 http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/07/my-4-hour-work-week-journey-interrupting-interruptions/ http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/07/my-4-hour-work-week-journey-interrupting-interruptions/#comments Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:04:08 +0000 Mwangi http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/?p=688

This is day 10 of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.

Fortunately, considering I spend most of my time working from home alone, a lot of what is in this chapter doesn’t apply to me. But without further ado:

Questions and Actions: Interrupting the Interruptions

1) Create systems to deflect my email and phone availability: I created an auto-responder that states I will only check and respond to email at 5 a.m.

To be frank my email at present isn’t that big of a problem: I receive between 15 – 30 emails a day which it take me about 30 minutes to respond to.

This will probably matter a lot more as the blog grows and I try to do more things with my life so its good to set the foundation now.

Phone

I started doing this long before I ever read the 4 hour work week. I almost never get personal phone calls. At most maybe 1 or 2 a week. A lot of people now know that if they want to reach me, email is the way to go.

I leave my phone off or am away from it for most of the day (Right now it’s on my bed side table while I type this).From being a self-important young adult who camped by my phone and racked up $500 bills, I now only have a mobile phone because my cousin thrust a mobile phone in my hand as her way of contacting me.

As for professional calls, again, I don’t really matter enough to get that many a day.Almost everyone knows that email is the best way to reach me. If they don’t know, I guess the benevolent education begins now.

2) Get Very Specific When Communicating in Emails: I read the 4 hour work week and began applying this principle quite some time ago.

From day one, whenever I was emailing someone about interviewing them from a podcast, I always gave them my availability times and proposed a very specific time to conduct the interview.Now one thing I am going to add to that email is that I must obtain someone’s phone number and time zone in regards to GMT: GMT +10h, GMT -4h for example.

This proposing of an exact time has saved me countless back and forth emails and hours. In fact the one person I saw do it waayyyy more effectively than I did, wrote me an email that went a little something like this:

I read about your blog on X and I wanted to find out if you are interested in telling your story on (media outlet) at X time (Name of their city and proposed time). Let me know

My response was long and flowery:

Yes

and the deal was done. Specificity is a lost art.

It’s wonderful to be non-specific and ambiguous in social situations but not in matters of productivity and the work place, I think.

3) Batch Activities: If it isn’t an 80/20 activity, batch it together and create a regular time slot for it. An example:

I work with virtual assistants, freelance coders and writers and am also a freelance writer and blog consultant (aaah, what do you know, I DO have jobs with fancy titles).

What I recently started doing is sorting out all the emails and communication and work that needs to be done AS SOON as I get on the computer. Usually, this involves sending out an email or two, checking on something here, something else there and usually in a couple of hours I am done.

This is definitely better than my previous style of checking on them in 5 minute chunks here and there throughout the night and leaves me a lot more time to write blog posts, market the blog, respond to comments and test out monetization techniques.

4) Delegate More if You are an Entrepreneur and Request More Control if You are an Employee: Avoid decision-making bottlenecks and give individuals as much power and responsibility as you can while they work on a particular task.

I have been outsourcing blog functioning from day 1 and intend on one day bringing a writer or two onto the tDA writing team so I have little problem relinquishing control right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, with that we have eliminated the unnecessary and can now move on with laser like focus upon that which is important.

Now on to what you and I have been waiting for, Step 3: A is for Automation.

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

This is day 9 of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.

Probably one of the most controversial ideas in the 4 hour work week book. Tim begins by laying it all out (you’ll probably want to read the justification first, because the idea in and of itself will look totally crazy). I paraphrase:

I never watch the news and have never bought a newspaper in five years, except by accident.

The Logic Behind the Madness

Tim spends a lot of the chapter entitled Low Information Diet going into his reasons behind doing this. I will highlight a couple of them below:

1) Lifestyle design is about input: Whenever we take time to consume – input – information, we are taking our energy and focus away from the most important element of all taking action. While doing all this it’s important to keep in mind:

2) Most of the information we take in is: time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to our goals and/or out of our influence. He then challenges us to pause and reflect on most of the information we most recently consumed and see whether or not this is true.

3) Tim proposes that instead of always consuming information “just in case” something happens, let’s begin to take action and pause to consume information when we run into a problem or a challenge and need information to solve it.

My Take on the Matter

I tried writing a few paragraphs talking about my thoughts on this chapter, but I realized that it would probably be best for me to respond to whatever problems you guys may have with the statements above (I know some of you do).

In Case You Think I or Tim’s Ideas are Madness

So if you think the ideas above are full of bollocks or that I am a cheesecake head (creative metaphors today) for believing in his ideas, let me know by leaving a comment below and let’s get a dialogue going on the low information diet.

I think I will only leave you with 3 questions and a story to reflect on.

Three Questions

Reflect on the news you most recently consumed:

1) How much of it did you immediately take consistent action on to the point that you influenced what was being reported?

2) How much of what you consume on a day to day basis is actually relevant to your goals in life?

3) Do you find yourself engaging in and finding more pleasure in being smart and having intelligent conversations and thoughts than you do taking action and potentially failing?

The Story

I was once talking to someone who was watching the news around the time a mine exploded in China killing about 50,000 people. I was curious:

Now that you have spent 20 minutes sitting there watching that, what are you going to do?

Nothing

But you sit there everyday and consume news media, surely you must act on this?

No, it’s just good to know.

You and I don’t help anyone by just knowing things and sitting in the house mentally masturbating ( sorry for the strong language but this is what we do a lot of the time), philosophizing and engaging in endless discussions.

We help people by taking action. Period!

Anyway, to the questions and actions section.

Questions and Actions: Low Information Diet

1) Go on a complete media fast: I don’t consume the news…..EVER!

Yes, very sad but very true. In spite of this, I am almost always up to date in the news.

Because I spend so much time online, and quite some time offline chatting with folks who constantly educate themselves, I know that for example in my country, Kenya:
i) A hotel called the Grand Regency was sold to Libyans for what many consider a low price
ii) That the Kenyan Finance minister has not only resigned because of the preceding event.

One of the most watched videos in Youtube history

Quite a Challenge

The challenging bit is: no web surfing unless its necessary to completing the task.

Now that will be hard.

Without consuming Youtube, blogs, videos and other Internet material, that leaves a HUUUGGGE vaccum in my day. So I guess I have now found the time to do those two high impact tasks a day.

Future Guiding Principles

2) Will I use this information for anything important and/or immediate? If the answer is NO, on both accounts, axe the information immediately: As a general principle:

Information is only as useful as your ability to take action and produce a result using it.

I already started doing this and am doing it more and more e.g. not listening to CDs on emotional health and relationships when I should be learning more about how blog content creation and monetization works. I think as a general tip, eliminate everything in your world (that you can) that doesn’t have to do with your goal at hand.

The ability to focus on one thing at a time and eliminate all input that doesn’t assist in that endevour tends to result in a much higher quality of work even when you put in a mediocre effort.

3) Practice the art of non-finishing: If the article isn’t useful, put it down. If the movie isn’t pulling your attention, entertaining or educating you, walk out. More isn’t better. More important, useful things are. Practice letting go, even half way of that which is ineffective, unimportant or useless.

This is day 8 of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.

Send Some More Love

To him whom much is given, much shall be required. The folks at Hot Kenyan Goods, who can be found at Youtube.com/hotkenyangoods did me the great honour of promoting the interview that I did with Stella Mwangi aka STL.

I just thought I would take this time out to thank them and encourage everyone to check out their videos and let them know what you think of them.

Questions and Actions:Pareto’s and Parkinson’s Laws

As I continue to go through all the question and actions section of the book (and ignore the comfort sections), my hope is that by now you have your own copy of the book so that you can follow along.

You don’t neccesarily have to buy the book, but please make sure you are reading at least a free copy of it because it gives you a lot of the psychology, research and ideas that underly a lot of these exercises, which may seem ridiculous out of context.

Should you have any questions about just what on Earth is going on, please leave a comment or send me an email at masmilele (at) thedisplacedafrican (dot) com – I love that format of writing out email addresses .

The questions are:

1) If I had a heart attack and had to work only two hours a day what would I do?

• Spend one day writing many articles and spend the other days editing those articles, putting pictures and posting them up.
• Sending press releases and gauging the response.
• The 4 hour work week journey.
• Read maybe 1 or 2 blogs of people who I have great relationships with: Doesn’t help productivity though.
• Market the blog.
• Check on jobs being done by VAs to ensure they are being done effectively.
• Implementing and testing blog monetization techniques

2) If I had to work 2 hours per week what would I do?

• Make sure I have outsourced writing of the blog to good writers.
• Focus solely on promotion and getting the word out there.
• Podcast interviews if I enjoy them or ensuring I have outsourced to the right person.
• Establishing and tweaking systems for testing blog monetization.

3) If I had a gun to my head and had to quit 4/5 of the time consuming activities what would I cut out?

• Reading blogs
• Watching and downloading so many videos.
• Looking for personal development materials online.
• Run less.
• Watch TV and movies during the night less.
• Not checking email so much.
• Not chating when it’s time to work
• Not multi tasking
• Not putting too many things in my to do list.
• Not trying to get work done when others around.
• Deleting all Facebook funwall notifications received.
• Consolidating my Facebook profiles to avoid going back and forth between them.

4) Top 3 activities I use to fill my time and feel as though I have been important or productive

• Chating on Google talk
• Watching personal development videos
• Answering email
• Rearranging and thinking about and reflecting on the blog instead of taking action

5) Put two high impact items on your to do list daily: This one has a couple of steps:

Plan the next day the evening before.

On your to do list, put at most two high impact (80% result) activities. If you have a hard time deciding from the minutae, simply ask the question:

If I finished one thing today that would make the most difference and bring me the most joy, what would that be?

Answer that and lock it in the list. To check out how I implement this, check out this video:

6) Put a constant reminder on Outlook or your computer asking either:

Am I being busy or productive?

or

Am I inventing things to avoid doing the important?

7) DO NOT MULTITASK: Single task to produce the most efficiency and impact out of every high impact activity ( think of the compound effect of focusing all your power and energy on a single, high impact task within time constraints).

Use Parkinson’s Law: Create false time constraints so as to increase your output. Parkinson’s law basically proposes that the complexity of an activity will increase to fill in whatever time we alot it.

Create a time constraint that results in you dedicating the minimum time neccesary to produce the maximum result.

Any questions or comments and that’s what the comments thread below is for.

To ensure you don’t miss a single moment of my 4 hour work week journey, subscribe to the site via RSS or email.

Be blessed and bless others,

Mwangi

This is day 7 of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey. Please make sure you read the rest of the articles that came before this one to understand where I am in the journey. Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week and go on the journey with me.

The part that you and I have been waiting for. Over the past 6 days we have set up the foundation. Today we put a dollar sign on the destination and get into the most compelling part of my 4 hour work week journey.

Before I get started to be fully honest by this point, emotionally I am so over going through this journey. But I thought, even though my emotional reserves might be running on empty, better to put out something and keep going than stay put and so I hope you guys appreciate that as you read this.

Questions and Actions: What Do You Want to Be, Do or Have? How Much Will IT Cost Per Month/ Per Day?

1) What would I do if there was no way I could fail? If I were 10 times smarter than the rest of the world?

I have already covered this in the following posts:

What if You Had One Year Left to Live? The Bucket List

8 Things I Would Like to Do Before I Do Before I Die & Meek Meek Meme

How to Take Africa from Zero to Hero: Entertainment!

My Story as an African Immigrant:Part five

The Rules of the Timelines

Tim proposes we create 2 timelines of 6 months and 12 months and in these two timelines put:

a) 5 things we dream of doing having and being over these two time periods

I am unclear as to whether Tim meant 5 things in total we want to be, do or have or 5 things we want to do, another five we want to be and another 5 things we dream of having. Therefore I opted for the latter.

In addition to that, I don’t intend on doing all these things concurrently and some I may not even end up pursuing because of time constraints.

I have limited attention and focus as a person and intend on doing all this stuff, one at a time. That having been said it will probably take me years to go through this list.

6 Month Timeline

Here are snapshots of my timelines

Within 6 months I would like to be:

Bodybuilder: I admire the discipline of Arnold and other elite athletes, including my friend in the army. Well chiseled individuals worth emulating would be folks like Tyson Beckford and Shemar Moore.

Emotional master: This one is probably one of the ones that few folks will relate to. As I said in 8 Things I Would Like to Do Before I Do Before I Die & Meek Meek Meme , I would love to have complete emotional mastery and be in control of the ebb and flow of my emotions.

From this place of control I would love to experiment and see if I can go seven days in a peak state without experiencing negative emotion.

Not negative events or circumstances but where I am such control of my emotions that I am able to redirect the energy from these events into positive energy without going through negative emotions.

What I like about this goal is that I have never seen it done and don’t even know if its possible. Let me strongly suggest that if you have the stomach for it, you at least set one “unrealistic goal” like this.

Successful Internet entrepreneur: This one has a few parts:

a) I want to be the preeminent blogger in some corner of the African blogosphere and be the “go to guy” for advice on some aspect of African life and am still wading through to discover which area/ areas I should focus on.

b) I want to become a marketing and systemization consultant. I want to travel the world helping Africans make money or systemize their businesses or create cashflow sources so that they can live better and we can up our expectations and the amount of spare time we have so we can have significant, tangibe impact on Mama Africa.

Therefore I want to study the work of Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber and W.E. Demming to become the preeminent go to consultant on high leverage tactics for cash flow creation a.k.a. Mr. “Give You More Money and Or Time”

Networker: There is a networking group where one needs to pay about $120,000 annually to get in. Apparently this gives you access to some of the upper crust of Western society. I want to understand how the world truly works so I can have the greatest impact I can: I want in.

Within 6 months I would like to have:

A Tesla Roadster: Google it and drool! It runs on electricity people! Electricity?! If not, I’d go the way of BMW with their hydrogen models that are currently marinating or go for anything that doesn’t aggravate humanity’s impact on the environment (if I have enough time to run and bike anywhere I need to go, that’s not necessarily a bad thing).

Bodybuilder’s Build: I want to get the aesthetics out of the way early so I can focus on the true substance of experimenting and testing out to find the best diet for me. I want to experiment with raw veganism, acid-alkaline diets, green diets and as many “natural” (no supplements or additives or anything that’s not coming straight out of the ground) eating systems as I can. I understand that when someone is eating well, their natural state is to wake up buzzing and excited. I want to see if that is true.

Custom made clothes: I want to build my own textile manufacturing project somewhere in Africa, where WTO has completely shafted the local textile industries, and begin creating my own custom made clothes, not just for myself but perhaps for sale. I would love to have “the Displaced African” as a clothing label someday.

Membership site: I want to have my own online tutorial site where I teach Africans something. If this 4 hour work week journey succeeds, this might be what I teach….watch this space.

Within 6 months I would like to:

Dance championships: Train hard enough that I qualify, maybe even win some global hip hop championships. I like to move, but yet I suck at it. What better way for me to challenge and extend myself than this?

Take a trip round the world: Depending on how successful this blog will be at the time and the community built around it, I would love to travel the world with a tiny camera stopping by reader’s homes and chatting. How cool would that be? A lot of beautiful women, cool cultures and lessons all over the world too.

Radio theatre: When I started this blog, I knew that someday I wanted to experiment with radio theatre and creating my own online radio show. Again, how cool would this be? Watch this space! In the meantime check out the BBC African radio theatre shows from a few years back: they are what inspired me to do this.

Interview untouchables: The two untouchables who come to mind, whose brains I would love to pick to find out how they can sway a crowd, control a crowd and hook them when they speak would be Anthony Robbins and Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

Learn African languages: I want to learn all African languages I will have time to learn starting with my own native tongue, Kikuyu that I hardly know, branching out to Kiswahili (good Kiswahili not sheng which by this point is really its own language), then move on to learn all Kenyan languages including Luo, Taita, Kamba etc. Then Southern African languages and so on and so on and so on……I have just realized I have never seen West Africans speak in anything other than fluent and Pidgin English…hmmm, why is that?….

12 Month Timeline

Within 12 months I would like to have:

My own clothing label that redefines fashion and hair throughout the continent of Africa and pumps money back into the local economy

My own apartment in the city: Right next to the beach and somewhere where I can work, find piece and have fun with my friends on weekends.

My own African media empire that completely revolutionizes the way Africans think about themselves. Refer to:How to Take Africa from Zero to Hero: Entertainment!

Within 12 months I would like to do:

Meeting with the president of Botswana: I would love to interview him and the ruling elite of Singapore to figure out what these folks are doing right and perhaps replicate that in other parts of Africa.

Starting my own small theatre company that caters to an upmarket crowd: I love acting and performance and all aspects of moving people. I would love to just take a long period of my life and just dedicate it to acting and putting together good pieces of artistic work.

Creating my own music album which is a collaboration with artists from all over Africa and being featured as a world class dancer in music videos throughout Africa: A Pan-African album where I work with everyone including Afro-latinos, African Americans, heck Maoris, Aboriginals and just put out a good album. Just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it. Has it been done before?

Recording the history of Africa and exploiting it for today: I think I have already spoken about how strongly I feel we as Africans need to not only record our history and heritage as different tribes but also begin to incorporate the wisdom of year’s past into everyday life.

I always use this as the example: the Luo and the Ashanti’s approach to death appears to be way healthier than the Western approach to death (If you don’t know what those approaches are, then I want to record all that and make sure you know).

Within 12 months I would like to be:

One of the greatest forces for political good in Africa

World class classical and modern day singer and dancer

World class speaker and motivator: Like Anthony Robbins, the Rock and Barrack Obama all rolled into one.

Relationship expert: Way too important to leave to chance is what I always say. Pretty fun area to learn more about too.

The Best of Both Dreamlines

What four dreams or goals would change it all? Within each of the timelines, highlight the 4 dreams from each column that would be the most exciting to pursue

That statement is quite vague to me and so what I ended up doing is taking 4 things from each of the timelines drawing them from the being, doing and having categories. Among the things I selected from the stuff listed above are:

6 months

Emotional master

World class performer

Join the exclusive mastermind group

Bodybuilding

12 months

My own clothing label

Studying the histories of Botswana, Singapore and other countries that have done quite well economically to figure out what they did right

Become a world class blogger, Jay Abraham, W. E. Demming, Dan Kennedy, Michael Gerber business expert and help African businesses create cash flow.

The Cost: The Target Monthly Income / Target Daily Income

Let’s talk numbers:

My target daily income is $3000 a day.

For more information on how I arrived at this number I created a lengthy private video that walks you through some of the steps I took. Please note that I use the terms Target Monthly income and Target Daily income interchangeably but I have no clue what my target monthly income is, all I know is my target daily income:

Now that we have quantified the end of this journey: let’s hit the ground running.

To ensure you don’t miss a single moment of my 4 hour work week journey, subscribe to the site via RSS or email.

Here’s to our collective success,
Mwangi

This is day 3 of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey

The Preface Chapters of the Book

Chapter: FAQ – Doubters Read This

In this, the first chapter of the book, Tim opens by explaining a quintessential idea of the book:

Lifestyle design which, according to my understanding of the book, I would define as manipulating the various elements that influence your life in such a way that you can be, do and have whatever you want whenever you want. I can also define it as designing your dream lifestyle now as opposed to “the deferred life plan” a.k.a. retirement.

The chapter was written to answer specific fears of potential readers including:

a) Do I have to quit my 9-5 or be a risk taker? In short, Tim says no, the book is written to teach you to design your ideal lifestyle, no matter what that ideal is. If you want to work as little as possible and earn a full time income, the tools are here. If you love your office job but just want some extra time off, the tools are in the 4 hour work week.

b)Do I Have to be a single 20 something to apply the book’s principles: This probably wouldn’t matter too much because most of you reading this are single 20 somethings but in short the answer is no. Browse around for Ferriss interviews and you realize he gets interviewed by his fair share of middle aged family individuals and the book has interviews with family men and women who have applied the book’s principles.

c) Do I have to travel? I just want more time?: As I said before, Tim says the book is a manual to teach YOU how to create YOUR desired lifestyle whatever that is.

d) Do I need to be born rich? Would the book have even sold a copy if the answer was Yes? Clearly this is a book written to appeal mainly to the middle, and to a lesser extent, lower class ambitions and problems.

e) Do I need to be an Ivy League graduate? Me and Acolyte have argued about the importance of formal education in guaranteeing success in life, let’s watch and see as I go through the book………….

Chapter:(Tim’s Story) and Why You Need this Book

The book begins with what I like to call a this-is-why-I’m-cool-and-you-should-listen-to-what-I-have-to-say story that talks about him participating in the Tango World Championships in Argentina while also briefly touching on other fantastic things Tim’s done such as Kickboxing in Thailand and scuba diving in private islands in Panama.

Tim then introduces a quintessential idea in the book:

The New Rich: These are people who increase the amount of time they have to pursue their heart’s desire and couple that with enough income to live that lifestyle and the ability to move and travel wherever they please to live the life they dream of NOW rather than saving it for retirement. Lifestyle design is meant to help people join the New Rich.

It should be noted that his examples of the new rich include cubicle workers as well as millionaires so he is clearly trying to make this book appeal to as broad a spectrum of people as possible.

Important Distinction

An important thing that Tim touches on that is rarely discussed is:

When we go off in pursuit of a million dollars, we are not in pursuit of one million pieces of green paper BUT instead in pursuit of the lifestyle and the freedom we believe the money will give us.

The book claims it isn’t about creating millionaires, its about giving you the lifestyle of a millionaire in the here and now by using time and mobility to increase the value of one’s income.

Another cool idea that comes out of this chapter:

The Dealmaker Mindet: Reality is negotiable. Outside of the law, morality, ethics and science, all rules can be bent or broken.

DEAL or DELA

DEAL and DELA refer to the two ways in which one goes through the lifestyle design process

If you are entrepreneurially minded you would go through the process in the following order:

1) D for Definition

2) E for Elimination

3) A for Automation

4) L for Liberation

If you are an employee interested in lifestyle design, the order would change slightly and become:

1) D 2) E 3) L and then 4) A; so you would strive for liberation (which has to do with the ability to be mobile and travel) first before striving to automate.

Clearly, seeing as I am a terrible employee, I will be going through the process in the D-E-A-L order.

Lack of Common Sense and Testing

Lastly, Tim discusses how a lot of the ideas in the book will seem very contrary to “common sense”. He says he is aware and proposes that one micro-tests one’s assumptions and micro-tests the ideas of the book before dismissing them.

I propose the same thing: conduct tiny little experiments with minimal risks with me and let’s see where we’ll be a few weeks from now.

There are many other important concepts that he introduces in this chapter but I’ll get to them in due time.

Chronology of a Pathology

This is pretty much a breakdown of Tim’s life from birth to how he arrived at the ideas of the book. If you have listened, read and/or watched interviews with Tim Ferriss you know everything you need to know.

Alright day 4, we got straight into step 1: D for Definition. To ensure you don’t miss a moment of my four hour work week journey make sure you subscribe to this site via RSS or email.

See you there,

Mwangi

]]> http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/06/my-4-hour-work-week-journey-book-overview-and-preface-chapters/feed/ 5 http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/06/displaced-african-review-four-hour-workweek-by-timothy-ferriss/ http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/2008/06/displaced-african-review-four-hour-workweek-by-timothy-ferriss/#comments Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:04:17 +0000 Mwangi http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com/?p=381

This is day 2 of My 4 Hour Work Week Journey

Now, below I will mention 4 things I liked about the book, the 4 hour work week and won’t talk about any negatives because I’m sure those will become self-evident as I work through the book over the coming days. That, and I don’t want to psyche myself out too early in my 4 hour work week journey.

4 Things I Love About the Four Hour Workweek

1) He is Empirical: To name a book ” 4 hour workweek” screams:

Hyperbole! Hype!B.S. !

So when I began to read about Tim, I expected his writing and his work to sound like a circus director or a car salesman: a lot of sales talk with very little substance to back it up.

Boy was I pleasantly surprised. If I could summarize one of Tim’s oh-my-goodness-that’s-genius-approaches-to-life-it-would-be:

Test your assumptions

Don’t automatically assume the limitations placed upon you by society, your background or yourself are true. Instead, conduct small tests and see what happens. As a result of Tim doing this, a lot of what’s in the four hour workweek isn’t an abstract manual but rather:

2) A Fascinating True Story: I want to do a lot of great, oddball things with my life before I die. I think I have found a person with an equally quirky spirit in Timothy Ferriss.

The man has, and is, revolutionizing the Western approach to work. He is the Chinese National Kickboxing Champion. He has won international tango competitions. He is a break dancer. He has been on television in Hong Kong. He has done all this while running a multinational company.

He didn’t accept what others took as the norm or limitations. He lifestyle supersedes any limits society might have imposed on him and this is part of the reason that I’m so drawn to him. It’s also the reason that:

3) He Has Backup from Heavy Hitters: I became a fan of Tim when I heard an interview he did with my blogging go-to-mentor Yaro Starak.

Among his mentors are the man who has sold 130 million books worldwide, Jack Canfield. He has been invited to give talks to everyone including the numero uno themselves, Google-check out the video at the very top of the article.

He isn’t some marginal rebel who is hated by the greats in society. His work appeals to a broad spectrum of folks from lone contractors to CEOs of Fortune 500s. Lord knows I’m African and authority figures influence me big time.
Finally I like the fact that:

4) He Teaches Us How to Separate Hours from Income: Now many Africana will tell you that this idea is simply preposterous. I watched my folks clock in 8-12 hour days 6 days a week and that’s the only way that folks can make a living right?

When I interviewed David Kobia and he spoke about the way his mother couldn’t understand how he could not be working in an office and could be doing all his work online.

I think I kinda went through the very same thing when this idea was presented by Jay Abraham, Yaro Starak and Tim Ferriss that your income didn’t have to be linked to the hours you work but rather the value you provide. Now however, I have embraced that this in fact possible: Me likes and I want a piece of that.

Anyway, someone left me a comment saying that I should do more posts where I present the options available for immigrants in regards to economic stability and prosperity.

So here goes: the trial continues. I have spoken to a few of you who are trying and living out alternatives to the bread and butter mill that is the 9 to 5. Together let’s build a library full of options that future immigrants can use to thrive in so far as the dollar is concerned.

I’m rambling now, but I ramble because I’m excited. Anyway either:

i) Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week from Amazon.com

ii) Pay a visit to his blog and learn a little more about the man and his great book.

And enjoy the rest of your day or night,

Mwangi

Yet another series that is being created and in this case lived on the fly. Feedback! Feedback! Feedback! Tell me what I should improve about the series, about the videos and just any other general feedback, please leave that in the comments section. Anyway……….

My 4 Hour Work Week Journey

More Information on Timothy Ferriss

1) Darren Rowse text interview with Timothy Ferriss

2) Yaro Starak interviews Tim Ferriss

3) Tim Ferriss is interviewed by About.com

4) Click here to buy a copy of the 4 hour work week from Amazon.com

Hope this series is of use to you,

Mwangi