Podcast

#594- Cal Newport and Tim Ferriss Revisit The 4-Hour Workweek

The Tim Ferriss Show

Last highlighted May 18, 2022 Source ↗ ← All highlights

How to Survive a Startup Culture i was working across multiple time zones. i think the vast majority of us can’t sustaind that for an incredibly long period of time. I decided to either completely rethink and remake the business or shut it down. That led to a commitment to backwhen you could buy a one way ticket overseas without too much trouble. And i just continued travelling because i had sort of removed the need to be physically in one location. This is sort of a microcosm of the macrocosm, if that makes sense. Transcript: Tim Ferriss I think the vast majority of us can’t sustain that for an incredibly long period of time. So I took the behaviors that I had developed working in the startup culture, working in a very fast growing startup, and then applied it to my own business starting around, say, 2001. My tenure at TrueSand didn’t last very long because TrueSand didn’t last very long. And I was working across multiple time zones. I was waking up early, going to bed very, very late, and probably clocking, I would say, at least 12-hour days typically. And what I began to notice, this was very early from a tech perspective, right? If you wanted to access certain, say, files on your computer, this is pre-Dropbox, you might have to use something like go to my PC to log in remotely and so on. So as far as mobility and remote access, it was very, very early days. We had Flintstones tools at the time compared to today. But the breaking point for me was about 2004. And I was dating a wonderful girl who I thought was probably going to end up my wife. And she broke up with me and gave me a, not exactly a plaque, but do you know those trifold photo holders that you get at a Target or something like that? They’re sort of wire brushed and so on. And so she had created a collage of sorts. It showed me, photograph of my head cut out and pasted onto this paper body in a business suit with a briefcase with stuff flying out. And it said, business hours end at 5 p.m. And so she basically said, keep this for your health, put this on your desk. And at the end of that relationship, what I realized was that outside of the pre-startup crash euphoria and the quick flips and so on. If I telescoped out, and if I’m not really getting to your answer, tell me, but this is sort of a microcosm of the macrocosm, if that makes sense. If I telescoped out a year, five years, 10 years, and looked at the behaviors, they were not sustainable. And the problems that were small were going to get bigger. The little physical issues that I had from sitting in front of a computer for those types of stretches were just going to compound, so on and so forth. And so that is when I decided to either completely rethink and remake the business or shut it down. And that led to a commitment to back when you could buy a one-way ticket overseas without too much trouble. I bought a one-way ticket to the UK where I stayed with a college friend, crashed on a couch, and I committed to spend four weeks there to figure things out. And ultimately, even with the rudimentary tools at the time, was able to really automate and outsource an incredible amount at the time using things like Elance and again, remote access Tools like go to my PC, where you would still have to go to an internet cafe, mind you. I guess it was Easy Internet or Easy Cafe, which was the internet cafe or cousin of EasyJet, if that rings any bells. And I just continued traveling because I had sort of removed the need to be physically in one location. And that led me to travel around the world for around a year. And over that period of time was guest, and I’ll stop in a minute because I’m not sure if I’m going in the right direction, but over that time and for actually many years prior, from 2000, What was the date? I want to say it was 2003 to 2013, I guest lectured at Princeton twice a year in high-tech entrepreneurship class, and I was the bootstrap example. They had a lot of venture-backed entrepreneurs who would come speak to the class, and I was the bootstrapping example. And I began to codify the rules that I had borrowed or refined for myself in this huge experiment. And that much later turned into the four-hour work week. Just (Time 0:10:58)
The Email Addiction Twitter launched officially that same south by southwest. You could see all of the tweets being published in real time on one big screen t v. It was very clear that we had either broken tool end or a broken approach to handling this tool. And everybody empathized, especially the people in this audience as south by southwest an. These are tech early adoptors who have maybe been sort of wading through the briar patches and quicksand of high volume emal for longer than the main stream. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Do you remember that? I do remember that. I absolutely remember that. I do remember that. Cal Newport It seemed like a metaphor for something. It seemed very profound. It was very meta. Tim Ferriss So let me just, as a backdrop, say, I think Silicon Valley in its best versions shows us the bright, optimistic, enabled, better future that we can have. You get glimpses of things that might only be seen on Main Street 5, 10, 15, 20 years later. So in that sense, it is a glimpse of things to come. Conversely, it’s also the canary in the coal mine for new maladies, for new neuroses, for new afflictions that are related to new technologies and developments and cultural changes Also if they’re associated with technology. Email addiction and assorted issues was the easiest to point to. And Twitter is just an example. I think you and I spoke about this some time ago, but my understanding is that Twitter launched officially that same South by Southwest. And I remember there being a huge big screen TV on the ground floor of the convention center where they had South by Southwest Interactive, which at the time was really the redheaded Stepchild of the entire event. It was tiny. It was so small. And now it’s the connective tissue that binds everything at South by Southwest together. But at the time, it was very small. And you could see all of the tweets being published in real time in the world on one big screen TV. And you could watch it. You could watch it slowly click through and you could see it scroll. It was incredible and kind of crazy to think that you could do that at that point in 2007. But Twitter wasn’t ubiquitous. Social media weren’t ubiquitous in the same way that they are today. So email at the time was a clear example of a tool that was designed for defense purposes, if we go back to like ARPANET and so on, best I can tell, that was now being adapted to be used as an Instant messaging tool by millions of people. And I recall, I don’t know if I mentioned this in the talk, but at the time, Robert Scoble was a big figure in this corner of tech. And he had said something to me along the lines, I may have only mentioned this in later talks, I don’t know if I mentioned that one, but that the only way to receive fewer emails is to not Respond. And that he had noticed when he responded to email, for every email he responded to, he received something like 1.75 email in response. And that is the very definition of insurmountable. You used the word metastasize earlier in the conversation. I think that’s very appropriate here. And if you begin to telescope out, just looking at if we take that math as roughly true for a lot of people in some fashion, it was very clear that we had either a broken tool and or a broken Approach to handling this tool. And everybody empathized, especially the people in this audience at South by Southwest. I mean, these are tech early adopters who have maybe been sort of wading through the briar patches and quicksand of high-volume email by that point, perhaps for a few years longer than The mainstream. That acute pain perhaps had not been felt by a lot of other people, which is part of the reason why I think the four-hour workweek really, and it was deliberate on my part also, but it really Took off among tech-savvy and tech-immersed knowledge workers in a handful of cities first. And I think it’s because they felt the pain most acutely. Cal Newport And that matches my research. They’re (Time 0:28:39)
Is It OK to Intimidate Others? • It is ok to inconvenience other people, as long as it is done in a way that is mindful and does not lead to resentment or crew fatigue. • It is important to ask questions and test assumptions in order to be able to prioritize oneself and be successful in the world. Transcript: Cal Newport The structure of the talk was six minutes, seven minutes pain. Like, let’s get into the pain and then relief in, you know, we can radically rethink what work is. And now we’ll talk through like different ways you might do that. One of the things I picked up re-listening to it recently too, is the other thing that seemed to land in there was the examples you gave about it’s okay to do things that might make someone Else’s life temporarily less convenient. For some reason that really landed, like put an autoresponder and say, I’m not going to respond to you right away or fire a client. Those two things really to land. Do you think that gets at the pain in a pretty clear way? Or the frustration? I definitely came away with that because when I heard those two things, I remember those things landing when I first heard your talk and they landed, whatever this is now, 14, 15 years Later. It’s okay to basically tell some people, you have to be inconvenienced here. So there must have been something going on where everyone could just grab you and your time and there was a helplessness. And that frustration was palpable when those examples really, I think those examples really got to it. Tim Ferriss For sure. And it’s also, the sort of interpretation is in the eye of the beholder here, but one way to look at it would be, it’s okay if you inconvenience other people. The other way to look at it is, it is not just okay, but it’s imperative that you prioritize your self-care. And if you don’t, you’re not going to be a player in this game very long. And if you don’t establish boundaries and ask for what you want, indicate what you don’t want, the world will be happy to program all that for you. And chances are, it’s not going to turn out very well. So you can sort of develop what I would consider a positive assertiveness, or you can build resentment and accrue fatigue until you break. And it’s not only those two options, but I think it’s perhaps useful to think of the two in opposition. And that definitely landed for folks. And the tools are important, right? I don’t want to say that the tools aren’t important, but ultimately it’s asking better questions, it’s testing assumptions, and it’s really reorienting yourself with different Philosophies and a different psychology. Because if you don’t believe it’s okay for anyone to wait an hour or two or three, or even a day or two or three for a response in some instances, it doesn’t matter what tool you use. It just doesn’t. And impatience will just swell to fill the void if you allow it on behalf of everyone who is being trained to be impatient. Cal Newport What (Time 0:53:50)
What is the Absolute Worst Case Scenario? “The vast majority of the conversations began with a confession of some type. People came up to talk about their pain, and how they feel like they have digital handcuffs,” he says. “People were all so excited and nervous to test things.” A short test is very valuable because it provides you with more information than long-term tests can give him. Transcript: Cal Newport Was the private reception, if you remember? So now you’ve given the talks, standing room only, you’re socializing the parties, et cetera, that makes up South by Southwest. Do you remember what were people talking to you about, growing to you about, excited about? Tim Ferriss I would say that the vast majority, it’s been a while, right? So to my memory, the vast majority of the conversations began with a confession of some type. People came up to talk about their pain or their situation or the unrealistic expectations that are made of them and how they feel like they have digital handcuffs of one type or another. I mean, it almost always started with some type of confession and commiserating, right? Because I’d been there and done that. So I wasn’t an outsider in that sense. I was a fellow patient, if that makes sense. And people were also excited and nervous to test things. So they were looking for reassurance that these were experiments worth doing with limited downside, which is always how I painted it. I said, what is the, I would ask questions and you’ve heard this again, I haven’t heard the talk since I gave it, but what is the absolute worst case scenario if you put up an autoresponder? Are you going to be fired sight unseen because you created an autoresponder? Okay. Then you determine what you think the worst case scenario is. How could you mitigate the risk of that downside? Maybe you talk to your boss in advance. Maybe you test it only for half a day on Fridays when your boss leaves at 3 p.m. And you can get to see how co-workers respond to it. And then how would you sort of reverse the damage if the worst case scenario comes through? Well, you take the autoresponder down. What is the residual damage of that really? And if the damage is containable, if it’s finite, and you look at the potential upside of what it could mean to you if it works, that is a gamble worth taking. It’s just an asymmetric bet. And so I really tried to frame it that way. I was like, look, I’m not saying that anyone should commit to doing these things forever. Right? Because a lot of the concerns and the pushback would be like, well, what if this and what if that and what if all these scenarios? I can’t account for all the scenarios, but I do know that in my own life and in the life of the people who served as case studies, a short test, 24 hours, 48 hours, is very valuable because It provides you with more information. And it either confirms or questions a lot of the fears associated, the anxieties associated with it. So a lot of the conversations are around that. And people got right to it. I mean, South by Southwest lasts a while. So there were people who began to test autoresponders the next day. And so people then started coming up to me to share their kind of hallelujah. I thought all these horrible things were going to happen, and none of them happened. At (Time 0:56:45)
How Much Do You Make Per Hour? How much you make per hour is actually quite important, in the sense that it’s easy to say so and so makes 200 thousand dollars a year. The where with whom, how, et cetera, determines the lot of that. And which is part of the reason that g arbitrage, or g o arb, was another thing that was i onot if it was put on the map but i was definitely thrust into the zikis by readers of this book. Transcript: Tim Ferriss Determining how much you make per hour is actually quite important in the sense that it’s easy to say, so-and makes $200,000 a year, so-and makes $75,000 a year, another person makes $500,000 a year. Therefore, the last example is the most successful and no doubt they have the greatest lifestyle output for what they make. But the lifestyle or life value of each unit, each dollar is really dependent on other factors and to what degree you control them. The where, with whom, how, etc. Determines a lot of that, which is part of the reason that geo-arbitrage or geo-arb was another thing that was, I don’t know if it was put on the map, but it was definitely kind of thrust Into the zeitgeist by readers of this book. The idea that you can geo-arbitrage, which you can do in a single country or even a single state, right? It doesn’t have to be scattering different income and expenses around the world. It could be, you know, you’ve gone through COVID, you lived in Manhattan, you decided this makes no sense to escape the city, you went to New Jersey or Long Island or Connecticut or who Knows where, right? Upstate New York, you realize you prefer that quality of life and that you can get, you know, four times the sort of value for money in certain locations, even just within a radius of a Few hours. I just think the definition section is super, super important. We don’t have to dwell on it, but I just wanted to mention some of these overarching approaches to deconstructing assumptions that underlie a lot of our decision making. (Time 1:05:00)
The Good Life Is Built On The book is written in a way, if you start at page oneo cannot get around a sort of philosophical resets and questioning of assumptions. Without the underlying frameworks principles, i don’t think you met up solving many problems. I just reread the book. There’s no other way to interpret it than this is unsustainable. You know, you have to craft the life that emphasizes the other currencies that are important. This is what the good life is built on. Oh, now, let’s talk about how you might do it. Transcript: Cal Newport Did you observe people doing that, just looking at the hacks and not, or was it the perception of the people who weren’t reading the book, but just, this is what I think it is? Because of course, you’re around this crowd a lot more. Tim Ferriss Yeah, I think it’s more the latter. The book is written in a way, if you start at page one, you cannot get around the sort of philosophical resets and questioning of assumptions and design principles. You can’t get around that. 100% true. Cal Newport Yeah. Tim Ferriss But if you are reading a blog post that is supposedly a summary of the four-hour workweek, or you are reading any number of books that followed the four-hour workweek, which were intended To capitalize on that wave of popularity, they focused almost without exception on the tools and the tricks and the latest websites and the best virtual assistant services and so on. Again, not to say those don’t have value. They do have value. But without the underlying frameworks and principles, I don’t think you end up solving many problems. And in fact, I think you can end up creating a lot of new problems. Cal Newport Well, and maybe some of that was, I mean, you’re 100% right because I just reread the book. There’s no other way to interpret the book if you read it. There’s no other way to interpret it than this is unsustainable. You have to craft the life that emphasizes the other currencies that are important. This is what the good life is built on. Oh, now let’s talk about how you might do it. And part of this, I have two theories I’ll throw at you. Part of this, I think, is don’t underestimate the degree to which the way you did talk about the systems when you got there was so new and compelling that it almost opened up a new genre And tone in productivity. There was a, I don’t quite know how to articulate it, but there was a precision and a brashness to, you know, it was like very declarative and precise. And it’s kind of hard to articulate, but the way you would talk about, and the VA should do this and we should, and don’t do it for this. I can’t do it justice, but it’s very compelling in itself. So I think you might have introduced a stylistic approach to giving advice that itself could be separated from the context, right? Because that’s a great, it’s a very compelling, but it’s very compelling. The book is very compelling beyond the content. So there’s, yeah, there’s something in that tone. But then the other thing is, I think, and I talked, when we last talked, I was bringing this up to you, is that I’ve been covering recently, I’m very interested in the anti-productivity Movement, and it’s very powerful right now. And I’m taken by the degree to which, when you read people who are in this movement, the way they characterize what is popular in productivity and time management is invented. It’s fabricated. When they talk about what productivity books are out there right now, they will say, it’s like, yeah, it’s all about trying to get 60 things done and find more time in your day to get things Done. And so I go over to, okay, time management in Amazon. Let’s look at the bestseller list, right? What are the commonly the top three books there? It’s usually shifting back and forth between four-hour work week, my 2016 book, Deep Work, and Greg McKeown’s 2015 book, Essentialism. All of these books are about working less, getting away from distraction, getting away from busyness, trying to get the things that are more meaningful. I mean, you have to go down pretty far. I mean, David Allen shows up pretty early, but I think he’s misinterpreted. I think he’s more about, I hate the fact we have so much to do, but let’s at least try to tame it so we don’t go insane, right? You can’t really interpret him as pushing for overwork. I can’t find on the list of bestselling time management books right now anything that is, how do we get more done? I think the last book like that, that just straight up lionized that was maybe hyper-productivity from eight years ago or something like this. (Time 1:14:40)
Is Your Book a Warning Shot? “The way we’re working is becoming unsustainable. Be willing to consider radical alternatives,” he says. “It’s never been more important to insure that we are not getting really good at doing things that should not be done in the first place.” ‘Nology’s never been better, flexibility with remote work arrangements have never been better,’ R adds. “‘I just happened to be the one of many who could have written this book’ I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on what you’ve seen and heard from people around the world since i wrote it 15 years ago”, writes Dr Richard Quest. Transcript: Cal Newport So optimistically then, and I know we’re running short on time, so I’ll give my optimistic take and you can see if you share my optimism. Here’s the optimist’s storyline then of For Our Workweek and today is 2007. This book comes out. The way we’re working is becoming unsustainable. Be willing to consider radical alternatives. It was aimed at for the tech crowd that was ahead of the trend on unsustainability. It landed very powerfully. The people who encountered it said, yeah, this is absolutely right. It’s taken 15 years to get to it, but the wider world around it was not quite ready for that yet. They were still, we’re like, look, we’re still doing, we still believe that maybe hardcore productivity and systems. And if we just have the right planner that we can solve this problem, we get the 2021, we get the pandemic to help accelerate this. Now, knowledge work writ large is like that 300 people in that overcrowded converted cafeteria in 2007. They now recognize things are unsustainable. They’re now really open to the idea of maybe radically new things are available, that your book was a warning shot. We might have ignored it for a little while. And by we, I mean the people who didn’t directly encounter it, which it was a large people. But now we’re hearing the echoes of that warning start reverberating because what you were warning about, we’re all there, that you were 15 years ahead of your time. Am I optimistic there or is that plausible? Tim Ferriss I mean, that sounds plausible for sure. I certainly, what I saw and experienced, other people saw and experienced, I just happened to be the one of many who could have written this book, who sat down after looking for this book For myself to write the book I couldn’t find. And I think that a lot of the challenges discussed in the four-hour workweek have only compounded. And if compounding is the eighth greatest wonder of the world, then it’s remarkable and terrifying what that can become. So I do think I agree with you that it’s same, same, but 10X, same, same, but 100X, same, same, but 1,000X. Instead of one inbox, we now have 14. It’s clear to me, and maybe this will always be the case, but that a lot of what we consider work is just simply not working. And it’s never been more important to ensure that we are not getting really good at doing things that should not be done in the first place. And optimistically also, we’ve never, in a sense, had more options. The technology has never been better. The flexibility with remote work arrangements have never been better. So the tools and options and unorthodox career and life choices that are available now have never been available to more people, in my opinion. So (Time 1:20:58)