I used to keep track of all the books I've read that "changed the way I look at the world". Books like Robert M. Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" or E. F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" or "Good Work" or lately Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail" are the ones that come first to mind. These are amazing books - and they truly did change the way I look at the world.
I recently read Timothy Ferriss's "The 4-Hour Workweek". And it changed not only the way I look at the world, but the way I look at, and more importantly, the way I live my life. Truth be told, one of the reasons I started this web site and this blog was a direct result of making some changes in my own world, resulting from my first time through this book - which was actually in audio form.
From the 4-Hour Workweek title (and its subtitle "Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich"), you may think it's an escapist's handbook. You'd be right - but only to a certain extent. 4HWW is a kind of an escapist's bible. But it also contains a lot of practical advice that will seriously, if you let it, help guide your thinking, and more importantly, your doing something with your life. Ferriss talks an awful lot about outsourcing many of your everyday tasks like scheduling appointments, making reservations, writing (he has a very successful blog), etc. He even refers to another author who used 4HWW recommendations to outsource writing apology notes and sending flowers to his wife. Ok - there's some merit in those ideas (ok, maybe not writing apologies to your wife on your behalf). But, despite all our daydreaming, most of us are not going to go hard-core into having a personal assistant in India schedule our oil changes and buy our books on Amazon for us.
You see, I work hard. I love the feeling of a job well done, particularly if it involved some physical labor like a good workout, some heavy work around the house, or trekking with some altitude gains up a mountain. One of my longtime life mottos comes from my experience bouldering - "If I'm not falling down, I'm not pushing myself hard enough". I always considered myself a perfectionist and an achiever (in fact one of my Strengths Finder strengths is "Achiever" - yes I'm a little bit corporate). But until I read 4HWW, I had only a vague sense of what I was working toward in many respects - particularly in terms of career. As I've thought more about career, in the new context of this book, I'm inspired to say that I'm homing in on it. And that's really what this blog entry is about.
My job is not a means to an end - something that pays the bills and, as I always hoped, offers advancement in terms of promotions, salary bumps and bonuses - corporate prestige. Nope - not anymore. While the paying the bills part is necessary, and the rest are certainly great to have, those other things are not sufficient. No, instead, I am on a quest for work that is fulfilling, that I love doing, from which I continuously learn and working alongside people I love. These are not new discoveries. Nor are these conditions entirely unmet in my current, or even previous professional roles. I do enjoy my current job for the most part, and I enjoy most of the people I work with (you'd call me a liar and I'd lose all credibility if I said I love it all). But what is new, how my perspective has changed as a result of the 4HWW, is what is in the exact center of the crosshairs. My focus.
I want more from my work and my life - I want to contribute. You'll notice here I stopped calling it "my career" or "my job". I feel "my work" better describes my take on what I spend my waking hours doing. And part of this means that everything I do needs to take me a step toward my ultimate plans - my life's mission. That mission, really a statement of values which has yet to be fully operationalized, is called out at the top of my "About" page on this website. While, yes, it does lack in specificity, it also provides me a lens through which to view tackling a lot of challenges. I have moved from having a starting point that asks "What is possible?" to asking myself "What do I want to do?" and then figuring out how to make that happen. That is a subtle, but significant shift.
As an example, Ferriss talks about outsourcing your tedium and traveling around the world. He calls out explicitly, those are examples of ways you could choose to live your life. It's what he does (along with many others he interviews and writes about). But what if you really could minimize non-productive, busy-work and instead have additional time each week to do exactly what you wanted to do rather than what you have to do to pay the bills? Take a minute to ponder "What would I do with an extra 36 hours this week?" What would you do with that much extra time next week? And the week after that?
You know what I would do? I would take time to become an expert Python coder. Yes, I really am that big of a geek. I am currently teaching myself this programming language in my spare time. There's just not nearly as much of that spare time as I'd like right now. The truth is, ironically, my motivation to start was originally 100% due to current job responsibilities. I knew it would help me on the job and make me a better data scientist. So I started spending a few minutes or maybe an hour now and then over my lunch break at work, learning to code Python. But a funny thing happens when you open up the blinders on your vision though. Once you start looking, you start to see opportunity everywhere. The world is awash with "open data" - the kind of big, text based data that Python is perfect for analyzing. So many opportunities exist to do good work beyond the scope of what you might think of as your "day job" (look at what the folks at Datakind or Taprootfoundation are doing for just a few examples of what you can do with your technical "business skills"). So, to avoid any perception of conflict of interest, I am now teaching myself this coding language in my personal time - b/c while it will help me in my day job, I intend to also use it to do non-profit work that I truly believe in. You want to change the world? You want to cure diabetes, or alzheimer's, or cancer? Good news my friend. You can. But you have to do a few things first.
You have to create capacity - you have to take those 36 hours back somehow. You have to carve out time to say "yes" when opportunity knocks. It's not easy - I struggle with it everyday and am just getting started myself. But I am starting. And then you have to dream up what you want to do. Which isn't as easy as you might think. Seriously - revisit that question - what would you do with your 36 hours? And I'm not talking about chilling, reading a good book at your favorite coffee shop. I'm talking about getting your hands dirty. About saying "yes" and working yourself hard and learning like crazy.
I am just starting here - so I can attest it is far too easy to get satisfactorily good at something and settle in and become complacently good at it, sitting at a desk at your day job making decent money and taking long weekend trips and enjoying life. Maybe you'll buy your dream home on your dream property. Maybe somehow, despite everything life throws at you, your plans will materialize into the kind of stable, secure career and life you always wanted.
And then, maybe you'll ask yourself "What would I do with my 36 hours?"
Until next time...
jn
I recently read Timothy Ferriss's "The 4-Hour Workweek". And it changed not only the way I look at the world, but the way I look at, and more importantly, the way I live my life. Truth be told, one of the reasons I started this web site and this blog was a direct result of making some changes in my own world, resulting from my first time through this book - which was actually in audio form.
From the 4-Hour Workweek title (and its subtitle "Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich"), you may think it's an escapist's handbook. You'd be right - but only to a certain extent. 4HWW is a kind of an escapist's bible. But it also contains a lot of practical advice that will seriously, if you let it, help guide your thinking, and more importantly, your doing something with your life. Ferriss talks an awful lot about outsourcing many of your everyday tasks like scheduling appointments, making reservations, writing (he has a very successful blog), etc. He even refers to another author who used 4HWW recommendations to outsource writing apology notes and sending flowers to his wife. Ok - there's some merit in those ideas (ok, maybe not writing apologies to your wife on your behalf). But, despite all our daydreaming, most of us are not going to go hard-core into having a personal assistant in India schedule our oil changes and buy our books on Amazon for us.
You see, I work hard. I love the feeling of a job well done, particularly if it involved some physical labor like a good workout, some heavy work around the house, or trekking with some altitude gains up a mountain. One of my longtime life mottos comes from my experience bouldering - "If I'm not falling down, I'm not pushing myself hard enough". I always considered myself a perfectionist and an achiever (in fact one of my Strengths Finder strengths is "Achiever" - yes I'm a little bit corporate). But until I read 4HWW, I had only a vague sense of what I was working toward in many respects - particularly in terms of career. As I've thought more about career, in the new context of this book, I'm inspired to say that I'm homing in on it. And that's really what this blog entry is about.
My job is not a means to an end - something that pays the bills and, as I always hoped, offers advancement in terms of promotions, salary bumps and bonuses - corporate prestige. Nope - not anymore. While the paying the bills part is necessary, and the rest are certainly great to have, those other things are not sufficient. No, instead, I am on a quest for work that is fulfilling, that I love doing, from which I continuously learn and working alongside people I love. These are not new discoveries. Nor are these conditions entirely unmet in my current, or even previous professional roles. I do enjoy my current job for the most part, and I enjoy most of the people I work with (you'd call me a liar and I'd lose all credibility if I said I love it all). But what is new, how my perspective has changed as a result of the 4HWW, is what is in the exact center of the crosshairs. My focus.
I want more from my work and my life - I want to contribute. You'll notice here I stopped calling it "my career" or "my job". I feel "my work" better describes my take on what I spend my waking hours doing. And part of this means that everything I do needs to take me a step toward my ultimate plans - my life's mission. That mission, really a statement of values which has yet to be fully operationalized, is called out at the top of my "About" page on this website. While, yes, it does lack in specificity, it also provides me a lens through which to view tackling a lot of challenges. I have moved from having a starting point that asks "What is possible?" to asking myself "What do I want to do?" and then figuring out how to make that happen. That is a subtle, but significant shift.
As an example, Ferriss talks about outsourcing your tedium and traveling around the world. He calls out explicitly, those are examples of ways you could choose to live your life. It's what he does (along with many others he interviews and writes about). But what if you really could minimize non-productive, busy-work and instead have additional time each week to do exactly what you wanted to do rather than what you have to do to pay the bills? Take a minute to ponder "What would I do with an extra 36 hours this week?" What would you do with that much extra time next week? And the week after that?
You know what I would do? I would take time to become an expert Python coder. Yes, I really am that big of a geek. I am currently teaching myself this programming language in my spare time. There's just not nearly as much of that spare time as I'd like right now. The truth is, ironically, my motivation to start was originally 100% due to current job responsibilities. I knew it would help me on the job and make me a better data scientist. So I started spending a few minutes or maybe an hour now and then over my lunch break at work, learning to code Python. But a funny thing happens when you open up the blinders on your vision though. Once you start looking, you start to see opportunity everywhere. The world is awash with "open data" - the kind of big, text based data that Python is perfect for analyzing. So many opportunities exist to do good work beyond the scope of what you might think of as your "day job" (look at what the folks at Datakind or Taprootfoundation are doing for just a few examples of what you can do with your technical "business skills"). So, to avoid any perception of conflict of interest, I am now teaching myself this coding language in my personal time - b/c while it will help me in my day job, I intend to also use it to do non-profit work that I truly believe in. You want to change the world? You want to cure diabetes, or alzheimer's, or cancer? Good news my friend. You can. But you have to do a few things first.
You have to create capacity - you have to take those 36 hours back somehow. You have to carve out time to say "yes" when opportunity knocks. It's not easy - I struggle with it everyday and am just getting started myself. But I am starting. And then you have to dream up what you want to do. Which isn't as easy as you might think. Seriously - revisit that question - what would you do with your 36 hours? And I'm not talking about chilling, reading a good book at your favorite coffee shop. I'm talking about getting your hands dirty. About saying "yes" and working yourself hard and learning like crazy.
I am just starting here - so I can attest it is far too easy to get satisfactorily good at something and settle in and become complacently good at it, sitting at a desk at your day job making decent money and taking long weekend trips and enjoying life. Maybe you'll buy your dream home on your dream property. Maybe somehow, despite everything life throws at you, your plans will materialize into the kind of stable, secure career and life you always wanted.
And then, maybe you'll ask yourself "What would I do with my 36 hours?"
Until next time...
jn