Here is a fairly recent bestseller that I was excited about reading when I first started, enough that I have recommended it to a number of other people, including my son, only to close the book for good on page 171, when I lost interest of the phony and contrived ideas that the author portrays.

There is also a web site the author publishes you may want to check out.

Yes, there may be people that can get away with doing very well producing very little, exploiting the system of business we have, the fabric of our society and the rules by which it plays. It can work for some people, but just like a Ponzi scheme, it does not hold up for the masses and has to collapse. For me, it collapsed on page 171.

Make no mistake, the book is chock full of good ideas about time management, the entrepreneurial spirit, how to get things done, how to be successful, how to make money, all with minimal effort. So from that point of view it’s worth reading.

But I asked myself if I would be interested in meeting the author, and I decided I wasn’t. I think he is a person  that cuts corners and takes shortcuts. I would have a hard time respecting a marathon runner who, when nobody is looking, cuts across the brush in a hairpin curve to make the route just a bit shorter. In the same vein, I have trouble with Ferriss and some of the advice he gives.

What bothers me is that he really does not produce any value. He shows you how to move around value to make it larger. There are many people like that, but if everyone in the world were to move around value, there would be no goods to buy or sell, and no food to eat. Somebody has to build, invent,  invest, lead and – yes – work hard.

I am a worker, not a mover-arounder.

Go read The 4-Hour Workweek and decide what you are.